Can employer make me take a 20% wage cut?

kennethsmyth

JimmyVik wrote: »

I said in another thread and got jumped on by "company men" who think companies do no wrong.

Many companies will not waste a good recession, even if they arent impacted.

Have to agree here, however there will be also many companies in trouble.

One thing to note for all employers is that if you are paying staff say 70% or a reduced salary and they are still working and you have not gotten consent you could be taken to WRC or labour court later on. Most employers are aware of this but maybe not the next sentence.

If an employer is topping up the wage to say normal payment net but part of this is a covid payment that has yet to be taxed and will be later an employee could still show that the employer is not paying the full net pay due to them and has done so without consent. Now this is only due to employers who can afford to pay as in reality an adjudicator will take the companies situation into account. However it does point out the subtleties of this covid payment and that its being paid net.

kennethsmyth

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Update on my post above.

Despite being pitched as a voluntary cut, it turns out they're running it as opt out and that if you don't respond, they'll presume consent. Worse, when trying to access the details on line you have to accept before you can view it.

I've thus emailed one of the directors for a chat as I was under the impression that a company cannot just force you to take a cut.

Just been on covid meeting with one of the big 4 and an opt out is totally not acceptable - must be by given consent.

skallywag

kennethsmyth wrote: »

Just been on covid meeting with one of the big 4 and an opt out is totally not acceptable - must be by given consent.

This is also my understanding, and in our case we need to sign a document which gives said consent.

JDxtra

My wifes company are doing the same - 10% to 15% cuts across the board. They say no consent is required, if you want to opt out you have to email the head of the company in Ireland! They expect 99% compliance. Anything less and they'll move to redundancies. Staff are all still working full time and operation is profitable.

skallywag

JDxtra wrote: »

Staff are all still working full time and operation is profitable.

If the monthly figures are still profitable then I would really question the move.

In our case our sales are down by 50% and we are bleeding money at the moment, the owner put in 200 mil of his own cash to pay salaries for the next 3 months, with the 5% cut coming in from July onwards.

antimatterx

Our company beat Q1 expectations, and there's not a hope in hell that we'll be taking a pay cut!

Dav010

antimatterx wrote: »

Our company beat Q1 expectations, and there's not a hope in hell that we'll be taking a pay cut!

I suspect a lot of companies beat Q1 expectations, will they beat Q2,3 &4? If you work for Amazon, maybe.

In case you’ve missed it, the ass just fell out of most economic markets world wide.

skallywag

Dav010 wrote: »

In case you’ve missed it, the ass just fell out of most economic markets world wide.

Strongly agree.

Some posters on this thread are incredibly naive. You do not need to be a 'company man' to see why these measures are required.

I can only repeat what I have said multiple times. Refuse a reasonable and well presented (as in the facts as put on the table, and you need to consent) pay cut at your peril, and expect to be made redundant. You will not have any comeback, unless you have exceptional circumstances,I have confirmed this today myself with the Citizen Information line, I actually called them myself now as well to get clarity.

Do you think I wanted to take a paycut? No. Was it the sensible thing to do? Yes.

Treppen

Everyone takes a pay cut for 6months , boss pockets the money. Declare bankruptcy.

bucketybuck

antimatterx wrote: »

Our company beat Q1 expectations, and there's not a hope in hell that we'll be taking a pay cut!

Thats incredibly shortsighted, it isn't Q1 that companies are worried about.

Our Q1 figures were fine as well but figures for April show we are now operating at a loss. We have committed to keeping all staff still employed with wages supported by the COVID scheme and will continue to do that as long as we can, but the simple reality is that revenue has dropped and costs will need to fall in line.

Complain about potential 10/15% wage cuts if they want but frankly it would suit us better to cut costs through redundancies, so anybody complaining should be careful what they wish for.

rn

One of the legal acceptable ways of differentiating staff for redundancy is if they've different contracts. Salary reduction needs consent. Withhold it and you differentiate yourself.

There's numerous ways to look at it. Perhaps your physiologically ready to leave the organisation anyway and this could be the "push" combined with a redundancy payment to change your life. Especially if you've many years service and you're financially relatively secure.

You'd definitely be hurt when this is proposed and this is a time when you are stressed anyway, so it's really tough.

While people think it's clear cut legally and it might well be, the only people who win going down the legal route are solicitors and barristers.

You can always accept it and move on as soon as a new opportunity arises, at least you've cash coming into your house while you are searching and you don't have hassle of meeting solicitors etc.

Remember to see if a company can survive this crisis, profit in 2019 or Q1, 2020 is as not very useful because they tell the story of the past. What's a better metric is cash reserves and cash flow into company. Usually profit and cash are linked, but cash tends to move in "real time", whether profit is only available at end of a quarter /year. If your company is really in trouble it's cash flow in will have reduced and they could be using up cash reserves to meet cash out commitments eg to buy materials to keep production going and pay salaries.