If pay cut is below min wage

KBebb

Hey, I’m new to this, I have a question regarding going back to work (on Monday). I work in a private independent day nursery, where we don’t have great rates of pay anyway, and we have been told that we are receiving a 20% pay cut, which will be reviewed in September. I can understand it from a business point of view, but we are also being asked to work full time straight away and extra hours, which seems crazy to me! Surely just opening for restricted hours and reduced hours for us would of solved the problem without causing confusion from their employees! I know we are all in a strange situation so nobody knows what’s best! But getting to my actual question... is it legal for my employer to cut wages by 20% if it means some of his employees will be earning less than the minimum wage? And this leads to another question, shouldn’t we have to sign an agreement of a 20% pay cut before we go back? 

Any help is much appreciated, I’ve been searching and searching and can’t seem to find out what’s right and what isn’t! 

poppy12345

They can't pay less than minimum wage.

Semple

You would usually have to sign some sort of agreement / contract amendment to agree to a reduction in pay.

KBebb

Thank you for your responses, I thought so but just wanted to double check before going in to question it. 

phillw

Semple said:

You would usually have to sign some sort of agreement / contract amendment to agree to a reduction in pay.

It's wise for them to get your agreement in writing, but most people never actually sign contracts in the first place let alone when the wages go up or down.
If you don't agree to them reducing your wage then you should refuse in writing, otherwise by turning up you will have been deemed to accept the change in conditions. However it's possible that refusing will end up with them terminating your employment, depending on the employer they'll do it for questioning it.
In some respects it can be better to work for less than minimum wage, look for another job & then take them to an employment tribunal afterwards if they refuse to backdate the money they didn't pay you, but it's up to the individual to make a decision how they want to play it.

Jeremy535897

Some useful information here:
https://www.lindermyers.co.uk/can-an-employer-impose-a-reduction-in-pay/