Casual Christmas staff taken on to cope with the festive postal rush in Bradford have complained of incomplete wage packets, with some saying they have not been paid for three weeks.

Student Umar Mirza said he had not received a penny after working night shifts for three weeks at the Royal Mail Bradford North depot.

“We haven’t been getting paid,” he said. “They have been saying we’ll get paid this day, that day, for the last three weeks.”

He said he believed most of the 40 temporary workers with whom he was working night shifts had suffered problems with their pay.

Many of the staff, he said, were employed by Angard Staffing, Royal Mail’s in-house recruitment agency, but calls to Angard were met with a recorded message.

Another casual worker, Hassan Saeed, 18, said he had been paid £4.50 per hour for the work he had done, but his wage according to his contract was £6.58.

“We’ve been working three-and-a-half weeks. Most people have not been paid and some have not been paid the correct amount,” he said.

Royal Mail spokesman Heulyn Gwyn Davies said that, on Tuesday, the company had paid temporary workers who were “regrettably not paid on time or by the correct amount last week.”

He said: “Royal Mail apologises for any difficulties caused to a minority of our temporary workers. Our temporary Christmas staff are very important to us.

“The vast majority of our temporary Christmas workers were paid on time last week.”