Cheated! Please help.

[mey]

I have two 15 hours per week jobs. A couple of weeks ago I had another job offer. One of my bosses heard about it and called me in to offer me more hours. She used an excel type salary calculator and offered me a salary of £17 000 per annum for 25 hours a week. As it was a great offer I accepted immediately. So I declined the first job offer, resigned from my 2nd job and was excited about starting the 25 hour per week, £17 000 per annum job.
Then about a week ago I was informed that my boss will be off sick for the next month. Today I was called in by the "acting" boss and told that the salary was incorrect and that they were only going to pay me £13 000.
Obviously I was upset and told them I think it was unfair and that I will consider my options.
I can't go back to the job I resigned from as the position has been taken and I can't accept the other job offer as they too have appointed somebody else. So what do I do? I was told that once I accepted an offer then it's considered a binding contract eventhough I don't have anything on paper. Should I take this matter further?

Please, any advice would be appreciated.

[cal37]

If only you had it in writing.................. ..however all you can really do is put a grievance letter in, state in it that you accepted the job on the basis of a salary on 17k per year etc etc.

With any luck this will appeal to their better nature and they will come to an arrangement. Do not hold your breath tho, my bet is on they will say that you got it wrong and the job offer was always on 13k.

This is all true unless you had a witness???

[mey]

I don't have a witness so I've put my grievance in writing. Waiting for a reply. Thanks for the advice.

[Sidewinder]

Originally Posted by mey

Today I was called in by the "acting" boss and told that the salary was incorrect and that they were only going to pay me £13 000.
Obviously I was upset and told them I think it was unfair and that I will consider my options.

Your first option is to write a letter to the effect that you are extremely concerned that having been offered the job for £17,000 pa the company are now trying to reduce this to £13,000 and that you have terminated another employment on the strength of the original offer. If you are lucky then you will receive written confirmation that although the offer was made at £17,000 this was incorrect and they will only pay you £13,000. They will find it impossible to respond without mentioning that an incorrect offer was made originally, which then becomes your bargaining chip. On the strength of that, as suggested by Cal37, you may be able to negotiate something closer to what you want - if indeed you intend to remain there.

Alternatively, if they will not play ball, or if you believe that you will not be staying there anyway, a contract is a contract and this company breached it before you even started. Never mind that it is only verbal the response to your grievance will change that to written confirmation of the original offer. They can't dismiss you, but may only terminate the contract rendering them liable to pay you three months notice based on a salary of £17,000 per annum.

In the meantime, I would strongly suggest that if they invite you for any more little chats, you have some means of recording what is discussed - a mobile phone or MP3 with a one touch voice recorder which you can be holding whilst being spoken to for example, or ask for permission to bring a witness.

[mey]

Thanks for the advice. I expect to hear from them tomorrow.