WORKERS are being urged to check that they are being paid the new minimum wage after government research revealed a third of people never check their payslips.

The new rate of £7.20 an hour for over-25s comes into force on Friday, but bad bosses have already started mitigating against the small increase by cutting back on overtime and weekend payments.

A manager at B&Q warned that the firm is removing time-and-a-half pay for working Sundays, stopping paying a bonus and restructuring allowances for working in high-cost areas to cut costs ahead of the change.

“B&Q is asking people to sign their new terms and conditions of employment or they will be dismissed,” he wrote on the change.org website.

A B&Q spokesman claimed: “Our aim is to reward all of our people fairly so that employees who are doing the same job receive the same pay.

“That isn’t the case at the moment as some have been benefiting from allowances for a long time when others have not, and that can’t continue.”

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady welcomed an increase in the minimum wage but accused the government of discriminating against young workers.

She said they “face many of the same expenses as other adults and should be paid the same,” adding that “future minimum wage increases must do more to narrow the pay gap between old and young.”

Cash-strapped councils, which are struggling with a £5 billion social-care shortfall, have warned that care services could hit “breaking point” as the Tory government has failed to finance the wage increase.

The Local Government Association (LGA) estimates that councils could pay out at least £330 million in 2016-17 to cover increased contract costs to private home and residential care providers but warns the true cost is likely to be much higher.

Despite supporting the wage increase, the association’s Izzi Seccombe said: “The cost of implementing it will significantly add to the growing pressure on services caring for the elderly and disabled, which are already at breaking point.”

The LGA is calling for the government to bring forward to this year the £700m of new funding earmarked for social care through the Better Care Fund by the end of the decade.