Can I ask a colleague to be at pay dispute meeting?

[Cannes12]

Tried to Google this but failed.
Work want to reduce my hours and therefore pay. They've set a consultation period and I've arranged a meeting with them.
I'm not in a union but do I have the right to ask a colleague to be at the meeting with my boss? I'm worried I'll get emotional and won't represent myself very well.

Have you checked your staff handbook?

The legal right to be accompanied to meetings only applied to disciplinary or grievance meetings. So you should check your employer policies on other meetings, as many would allow it in the interests of being (or trying to be ) a caring employer.

Your employer cannot unilaterally decide to cut your hours, so is this effectively a redundancy consultation? In which case you could involve an employee representative / union rep if applicable.

Thanks both.
@hairmoohead I've looked at all the staff policies and it doesn't talk at all about any of this
@Aprilx it's only a few hours a week cut, does that count as a redundancy?

@Cannes12

Thanks both. *@hairmoohead* I've looked at all the staff policies and it doesn't talk at all about any of this *@Aprilx* it's only a few hours a week cut, does that count as a redundancy?

They cannot cut your contracted hours without your agreement.

If you don’t agree, then their options are redundancy or coming to some other severance agreement with you.

It might be difficult to argue that it’s redundancy if the reduction is only a few hours.

They should consult you and seek your consent, which they are doing. If it’s absolutely business critical and you refuse, they could terminate your employment and reengage on the new hours. You could then claim unfair dismissal but if there’s a really good reason they had to do this and they can show they consulted fully and explored alternatives, they wouldn’t necessarily lose a claim, plus it would probably be unlikely to be worth bringing one as it will take years and you wouldn’t be able to demonstrate significant financial losses with only a few hours a week cut.

What’s the reason they need to reduce hours?