Employer changing salary, hours and post title

[jackisback]

My workplace is going through managing change and my post is being devalued and re-evaluated.

 

It looks like my working hours will be decreased by up to 10 hours and i will be working for at least £3 per hour less. My post title will also be being changed.

 

My question is once the changes come into play - do i have to accept? Or can i demand redundancy?

 

I have been informed that a 6 month protected pay will be in operation - i take it if i accept the protected pay for 6 months this will mean i cannot get redundancy payment???

 

I have worked for company for 14 years.

 

Any help greatly appreciated.

[Sidewinder]

First of all, you unfortunately can't claim redundancy. For that to happen, the post itself has to go, not be reprofiled, changed or otherwise amended. You might be able to negotiate a redundancy, but there is no automatic right. Therefore, whether you accept the change in contract or not, the impact on a redundancy payment is nil, because there is no redundancy. Yet!

 

This sounds like a really tough set of changes to your contract - is the business in trouble I wonder? If it is, then it is possible that redundancies may follow further down the line, and the danger of having your hours and rate of pay changed is that this COULD affect any future redundancy payment, for that will be based on any contract which is in place at the time of the redundancy. Is it likely that the employer could be doing this to reduce financial liabilities in the future?

 

In terms of the changes being made, has there been any negotiation, or is this presented as a done deal? Has there been any Union involvement?

 

The employer can only make changes to the contract either with your agreement, or by terminating your current contract and offering to re-engage you on the new terms. You do not have to accept, but could effectively be resigning if you do not. In that case, you might have cause to look at Constructive Dismissal, but this would need rather more specialist advice.

[jackisback]

Thanks sidewinder.

 

I think the post is going. The service is changing and the tasks associated to the post are also changing. HR are currently working on the salary grading for the new post.

 

The business isn't in trouble as such and has a fairly healthy bank balance and accounts, but the government funding that is associated with part of my post is being cut/stopped so this is why the service and job is being forced to change.

 

This previously happened a few years back in a certain local authority area and my employer did offer redundancy to the employees affected but this was on a much smaller scale and only affected a handful of staff.

 

The change that will affect me will also affect apx 70 other members of staff in same position as me. I don't have Union representation and as far as I know there is not enough members of staff in the union for the union to want to be involved.

 

Basically the changes are a done deal but there has been consultation (well with a handful of staff representatives) which i'm sure means the employer can tick the box to say that staff have been involved in negotiations.

 

There will definately be job losses but probably for staff on lower grades than myself and the employers have intimated this fact for the last 12 - 24 months; but everyone still in limbo at moment.

 

At the end of the day it looks like i will still be working just as hard with a different job title for apx £4,000 less salary, although this figure is an estimated guess at the moment as i have not been consulted in the salary benchmarking for the new post.

 

So if like the handful of staff that were offered redundancy a few years ago - I am offered redundancy - If I take this offer - do I have to take it straight away before the 6 month protected pay comes into play?