Employed and forced to sign new terms

SomersetLady2020

My employer has forced everyone in the company to sign a document changing their terms of employment to agree to receiving only 80% of their salary for the next 3 months.
We were threatened with dismissal, not redundancy, if we didn't sign. I signed this document "under duress and threat of dismissal".
Is the document legal?

Undervalued

SomersetLady2020 said:

My employer has forced everyone in the company to sign a document changing their terms of employment to agree to receiving only 80% of their salary for the next 3 months.
We were threatened with dismissal, not redundancy, if we didn't sign. I signed this document "under duress and threat of dismissal".
Is the document legal?

Possibly. How long have you been employed.

SomersetLady2020

ive been there 8 years

Undervalued

SomersetLady2020 said:

ive been there 8 years

Your only way of challenging this (assuming informal negotiation fails) is to resign and claim unfair dismissal. It would not be constructive dismissal under these circumstances despite your resignation. It would them be for a tribunal to decide if the change was reasonable. If the company could show that the only alternatives were redundancies or insolvency then the change may well be lawful.

You would need good legal advice before going down that route. You would also need to be very sure that the business was still likely to be trading months or even a year or more down the line to pay any award a tribunal were to make!

sharpe106

Before trying to fight it the question you should be asking yourself is do they need to or are they just trying to save money. If they need to make the cut to service fighting it could leave you with nothing.  So you might be best biting the bullet for a few months. If you think they are just trying it on seek legal advice, but it might end up costing a fair bit, which I guess depends on how much you earn to if it is worth it or not.