Company restructure

Trudy_jane

I really need your help. My husband works for a large retail organisation in their warehouse. He currently has the job title Operations Support Manager, a 'level10' management position within the co.
The co. want to get rid of this position and downgrade him to 'level8', which has a huge impact on his salary and benefits. He will lose around a third of his salary.
They have given him the new job description for the level 8 role, but they have advised him (in writing) that there is no job description for his level 10 role because this role is unique to this particular depot. I thought that during restructure The new role had to be different (in this case less responsibility etc as its a downgrade) how can the new role be significantly different when there isn't a job description for the role he currently does.
A friend has said that the co. have a duty to prove the role is different, another said it was down to him to prove they were sufficiently similar. Does anyone know which, if any, is correct? If we have to prove his job will remain the same, any advise on how to approach this?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks for your time in reading this.

Sambucus_Nigra

Either - what are you trying to actually prove? Or get?

Trudy_jane

It's more to do with losing his salary to be honest. They can call him whatever job title/level they want but if effectively he is doing the same job then he should be on the same salary/benefits. We just wondered if we had a way forward to protect his salary and job. We just couldn't manage on that much less p.a. The only way to protect his salary, we thought, was to go down the route that the role was sufficiently similar. Especially in light of the fact they cant produce a job description for his current role.

oldtractor

is he in a trade union? could they help?

Trudy_jane

Thanks for replying. Unfortunately he isn't a member of a trade union.

SarEl

Trudy_jane wrote: »

It's more to do with losing his salary to be honest. They can call him whatever job title/level they want but if effectively he is doing the same job then he should be on the same salary/benefits. We just wondered if we had a way forward to protect his salary and job. We just couldn't manage on that much less p.a. The only way to protect his salary, we thought, was to go down the route that the role was sufficiently similar. Especially in light of the fact they cant produce a job description for his current role.

This wouldn't help you. During a restructure there is nothing to stop the employer from downgrading a post even if nothing changes. It doesn't protect his salary - all it does is (potentially) make him redundant.