Having contracted hours reduced

[Deleted User]

Hi, just a quick question. The retail company I work for have said they *may* need to reduce my contracted hours due to takings being lower than usual since Christmas. Only by about 3 hours a week. This is a national based company with shops all over the country. Can they do this?

jdturk

if what they say is true then its surely better that than making people redundant.

In short Yes but hey have to follow procedures

ceridwen

Well - i guess the choice boils down to either:
- tell them in writing that its under protest (or whatever the correct legal language is for this)

OR

- simply refuse (though you might be at risk of being made redundant if you do so).

So - I guess its up to you which option to take.

personally - I would simply refuse and hand them a letter telling them that I expected them to stick to my contract to put the ball in their court and then sit back and wait to see what happened next - but obviously you have to do what chimes best with YOUR life in that respect.

DO bear in mind however that redundancy pay - if it comes to it - is apparently based on the most recent paylevel (think its the last 12 weeks??) - rather than the "real" paylevel IYSWIM.

I DO have strong suspicions that many employers that cut hours are doing so just long enough to warrant basing redundancy pay on lower pay than the employee normally gets...

rupee99

It is a change to your contract of employment that you can either accept or not (a contract of employment is like any other contract and requires agreement between both parties), if you do not accept then as Ceriden says you do risk being made redundant or having other things made "difficult" for you.

To accept you simply have to workj to the new conditions.

Mudd14

You may not get the luxury of being made redundant if you refuse your new contract.

If they wish they can simply dismiss you. Your options are:

- Accept it and just be glad youre not being made redundant
- Protest the decision but continue working under protest until it is resolved
- Resign

As i have said above if you refuse the contract they can just dismiss you, although you will have a claim for unfair dimissal providing you have at least 1 years service.

If a company goes down the dismissal route, which is very unlikely, they will normally offer you your job back the next day under the new terms and conditions. This reduces your claim for loss of earnings at ET.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for the replies and info. I have worked for the company for 3 years. Redundancy is unlikely for me as they also employ staff on temporary contracts at my branch that have only been working here for a few months. I know its only 3 hours a week I would lose but I was just wanting to be clear on the legal side of it.

[Deleted User]

Just to add that it would only be me who would be having their contract reduced at our branch. Other staff are on smaller contracts but usually work more hours a week than what they are contracted so all what is happening to them is they are being put back to their contracted hours.

jdturk

Deleted_User wrote: »

Just to add that it would only be me who would be having their contract reduced at our branch. Other staff are on smaller contracts but usually work more hours a week than what they are contracted so all what is happening to them is they are being put back to their contracted hours.

Ah see I thought this was a nationwide thing they were doing, they are obviously reducing their liability if they have to reduce their overall hours or as someone else said they could be reducing their redundancy payment (but for 3 hours I wouldn't have thought it woud be worth it)

Fire_Fox

Surely they should be cutting the hours of the temporary staff? I'd speak your union or the CAB.

ceridwen

Mudd14 wrote: »

If a company goes down the dismissal route, which is very unlikely, they will normally offer you your job back the next day under the new terms and conditions. This reduces your claim for loss of earnings at ET.

My instant thought on this was to focus on the words "REDUCES your claim for loss of earnings at ET" - which would seem to indicate one could still take that employer to ET (only the claim would be for the loss of a proportion of salary - rather than losing the WHOLE job). Something some of us would still regard as worth doing - in order to try and get compensation for that paycut.

There would also be the thought of just how much it would be likely to cost the employer trying to "defend" this at Tribunal;):) - this thought, of itself, might just be enough to deter the employer from imposing the paycut.

ceridwen

jdturk wrote: »

Ah see I thought this was a nationwide thing they were doing, they are obviously reducing their liability if they have to reduce their overall hours or as someone else said they could be reducing their redundancy payment (but for 3 hours I wouldn't have thought it woud be worth it)

....but then some employers would think it was worth it - even for the sake of a tiny saving on redundancy pay. A tiny saving x a large group of staff for instance would mean a substantial amount of money saved by the employer if they managed to do this.

Also - there are some employers around who just cant resist the "challenge" to cut every tiny bit they possibly can from employees' salary and push for every tiny bit extra work they can on the other hand
- "ask me how I know" to quote a phrase (errr...on second thoughts...dont....as I never give out personal details on t'Net).