Employer deferring payment of 20% of Salary

[Broken_B]

Hi, to be concise yesterday my employer announced with no warning (via a companywide Teams meeting) that in order to "save the business" it will be reducing everybody's salary by 20% for at least the next 3 months. As it has described this reduction as a "deferred payment" it is confident it did not need to implement a consultation period as this is a measure to save jobs and has the blessing of ACAS. It also announced that as payroll is due on Monday it will be backdating this measure to 1st July.

My initial question is whether this is legal and what, if any, pushback is available to me. Naturally I am looking for alternative employment as the cynic in me says that potentially i will never see the 20% "loan" to the company again. The company could again cease trading and the money lost. Some backstory is the company went into administration in March and is now trading under a different name with the same directors, my contract is subject to TUPE but i am not in a trade union as this is not recognised by the company. The company has approx 120 employees. There is also worryingly an under payment to the pension provider and 10 months employee and employer contributions have not found their way to the right place.

I can probably survive for 3 months on 20% less pay but it's going to be tough, what is difficult to deal with is the uncertainty of the timeframe vs the "it could be worse and i'm not redundant" thoughts.

I was going to send an email to HR basically saying along the lines of "I am working under protest and not resigning immediately as the measures imposed will cause significant financial hardship". I believe this enables me to preserve my right to bring a constructive unfair dismissal claim later?

I'm sure it won't achieve much but it may make me feel more empowered? Fingers crossed for a new job on the horizon

[ULA]

Is there anything in your contract of employment that allows your employer to reduce your salary in such circumstances? If not then your employer cannot usually impose a pay cut unilaterally on employees without consultation, even for a period of a few months.

Businesses do sometime have "financial glitches" and it may be necessary for an employer to ask employees to take a pay cut to make the business viable, if it is loss-making for example. In which case there is a mechanism for doing this, if more than 20 employees are affected by the proposals to cut pay, which in this case with 120 employees applies, an employer is legally obliged to consult with a trade union or employee representatives about the changes under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULCRA). If an employer does not do so, the affected employees can bring claims for a failure to properly consult while still employed and claim up to 90 days’ pay as a protected award.

You have two options either write to your employer stating that if pay is not reinstated and you are not paid your normal salary then you will be starting the Early Conciliation process for unlawful deductions of wages which is quite a combative first approach, or you can send the email that you have stated above which gives you some time to decide how you want to proceed and gives your employer a chance to respond.

On the pension issue you may want to consider reporting this to the Pensions Regulator.