Is there a maximum pay cut an employer can give you?

[BumgrapesofWrath]

My DH has just learnt that he will be getting a £9k pay cut due to numbers being reduced at his level, therefore he ends up demoted.

Is there a maximum pay cut that they can give you? My train of thought is that there must be a cut off point before they can't demote you they have to make you redundant instead.

Advice gratefully received, this pay cut is going to have a huge affect on our family.

have you been to the CAB?
if not that is your best place. take his employment contract with him too.
it seems an awful lot to be cut by.
it might be percentage wise that there is a limit.

As far as I am aware (not an hr bod though) your employment contract cannot be varied without your agreement. So all terms - pay, hours, benefits, hols etc stay same unless you agree. However in the current economic climate many businesses are struggling. An alternative to redundancy is a short term reduction in hours e.g. a 3 day week on pro rata pay or a salary reduction across the board. I imagine this is what your dh's company are asking. In which case the amount of reduction could be a % across the workforce. It will be down to the workforce whether they agree to it or not. If they don't then I imagine plan b will be redundancies. Your dh needs to establish if this is a short term reduction, how/when salaries will be reinstated, whether all employees are subject to reduction.

I feel for you - dh was made redundant 2 years ago. Still not fully back to where he was.

They cannot just make a significant change to his employment contract without his consent. To do so risks a constructive dismissal claim. He needs to write to them stating he does not accept the variation to his terms and conditions.

The upshot is he may end up made redundant, or dismissed (he would need to make a tribunal claim then).

I'm very sorry. This must be shit for you :(

Link here explaining contractual changes: www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/EmploymentContractsAndConditions/DG_10028079

Sorry to hear about this. I can't speak for the private sector but if you're in the public sector there is definitely no maximum. I had a sweeping 25% pay cut following job evaluation. It was reinstated following appeal but by that time I was long gone as we would have lost our house cos we couldn't remortage. I know many others who were in similar positions. I think 35% was the worst I knew of - all down to incompetent bureaucrats totally misunderstanding the posts they were evaluating.