wage decrease in role

[Kati]

Re: wage decrease in role

Here is your friendly reminder teaboy

[MENTION=19071]teaboy2[/MENTION] x

[teaboy2]

Re: wage decrease in role

Right under Company Reconstruction they are permitted to vary your terms - Though they still need your consent to said changes. However the procedure would be to make your current role redundant and offer you alternative employment in a similar role. So i think that is what they are actually doing i.e. making your role redundant and offering you a similar role where you will be paid the same salary up to a set point in time. That point in time being a deadline for completing your training course.

But from the sounds of things, they haven't offer you redundancy itself. So we need to ask them more questions:

1 - Are our previous roles being made redundant?
2 - Can we take redundancy instead?
3 - If we except the similar alternative role, will myself, since am dyslexic be given additional time and/or reasonable support/aid to complete the role due to my condition?
4 - What is period of time (duration) will we be given to complete the training prior to our salary being decreased and job title changed to a lower role?
5 - Can you provide us with a list of Duties for the FPOS role and a separate list of duties of the ICT role please?
6 - Who will be paying for the training, and will the company be placing any clause in the new contracts to claim back such training cost if we left our employment within a fix period of time after completion of said training?
7 - Will the restrictive covenants in our current contracts (which are unenforceable) be changed to reflect a limited geographical location in which they would apply i.e. within a radius of 5 miles off main place of work - This would then make them enforceable but only for a 6-12month period - Also the relative business section is to broad - For example a courier firm is not in competition with an private ambulance firm, nor is a chauffeur service/driver, making the restrictions unenforceable too as they must be relative to direct competition!

Reasons i am asking the above is it would be unreasonable to expect anyone to make such a decision based on the little information we have been given so far. It would also be unreasonable to not offer people the opportunity to take redundancy instead, therefore as a result off not offering redundancy as an option it would be unfair to dismiss anyone that objected to said changes and would be deemed unfair dismissal, possibly even automatic unfair dismissal. Not only that but you would not beable to force those who objected on to a lower salary or change their job title, as their objection amounts to a refusal to agree to your proposed changes to their contractual terms i.e. Job Title, Duties, Salary. And would put you in breach of their contract and in breach of section 13 of the employment rights act 1996 (unlawful deduction from wages - As result of paying them the lower salary to what their contracted salary is when they did not agree to new terms) if you were to unilaterally change the terms of their contract without their written consent to a a variation of said terms.

Also point out that under Company Reconstruction term of your contract, they can not rely on said term to force these changes because they are in fact offering you alternative roles that come with less favourable terms i.e. less salary should you not pass the training course in time which is a less favourable term in itself!



Its up to you if you want to include questions 7 as that's merely something i noticed when ready the restrictive covenant part of your contract, as they are too broad in terms of what they deem relative business etc and as they fail to state a geographical location the terms would therefore apply to the whole of the UK, which is again way to broad and unreasonable and unfair and therefore they most limit the geographical location to a radius of x miles or to a city or town for them to be enforceable.

[Gill123]

Re: wage decrease in role

Hi,

Thanks for replying. From what I understand my employer, which is a private ambulance company, is going to be doing a lot of contract work for the NHS ( they have recently taken on many new people and put them on the Emergency Care Assistants course, but it was intensive 12 week course. They also employed paramedics, which they have not done before, most from overseas to work for them). The NHS will no longer recognise EMT role which use to be a band 4 on NHS pay scale, they will now only recognise ECA which is a Band 3 role on NHS pay scale, this is because they needed to cut costs.

No redundancy has been offered, although we have still to have consultation meeting I would have thought if redundancy was on table it would have been included in letter.

If we decide to do the ECA course, which quite frankly does not have any noticeable difference to the qualification of EMT that we already have, it has been stated " The ECA route will consist of a blended learning approach which means a mix of both independent learning, classroom, on the job and assessment, which can take between 9 and 12 months to complete. It will then need annual refreshers. What has not been made clear is that if we decide to go for the ECA qualification, our wages will stay same for that 9-12 month period. We also do shifts of 4 on, 4 off and I personally want to keep these shifts as they work really well for my life style, but Im assuming they will change these as company does not like them anyway? They are paying for courses.

Still trying to get my head around no 7 as I dont really understand "restrictive covenants" anyway in my contract. All this legal stuff is hard to digest, wish it wasn't, but it is, I came into this role because I cared about people and wanted to help them, but nowadays there seems so much red tape its nearly impossible.

[teaboy2]

Re: wage decrease in role

Don't worry about the restrictive covenants, its just something i picked up on in your contract, and they are not enforceable as they current stand as they do not limit the restrictions to a set geographical location. But that isn't something to worry about to be honest.

I think best thing to do is to wait see what is said at the consultation meeting - But also ask about redundancy option for those that object to said changes.

[Gill123]

Re: wage decrease in role

Thanks Teaboy, one last question if I may? This consultation meeting - never been to one before so are they going to be looking for me to either do (a) agree to taking ECA course or (b) down grading to ICT as I do not feel I can take onboard this meeting and make decisions at meeting as well without thinking it through, but they have already said I only have until 18th June. I no longer belong to the union so cannot take a represenitive with me and the only other option they gave me was a workplace collegue. Wondered if it would be helpful to talk to an employment lawyer on no win/no fee basis and see if they could come with me?

[teaboy2]

Re: wage decrease in role

Thanks Teaboy, one last question if I may? This consultation meeting - never been to one before so are they going to be looking for me to either do (a) agree to taking ECA course or (b) down grading to ICT as I do not feel I can take onboard this meeting and make decisions at meeting as well without thinking it through, but they have already said I only have until 18th June. I no longer belong to the union so cannot take a represenitive with me and the only other option they gave me was a workplace collegue. Wondered if it would be helpful to talk to an employment lawyer on no win/no fee basis and see if they could come with me?

The consultation is for them to provide you with details that they currently have and what they will be doing. Its not to be used to force you to make a decision, you still have 18 days of consultation left, and will likely have more consultation meetings - Yes take a work colleague with you if you feel you need too. As for employment lawyer, its certainly an option for you though they are likely to tell you the same as i have.