Unequal application in reduction of hours

[BrieAndChilli]

Work trying to stave off redundancy/liquidation and so approached the team and told us that they needed to temporarily reduce everyones hours and pay by 20% and that this would be across the board to be fair to everyone. We are a very small company - less than 10 people. Were told SMT would take a pay cut but still work full time.
It now turns out that half of the remaining team have only reduced hours by 10%. Do the rest of us have any comeback legally? we were told everyone had dropped the sale and only found out by some comments and deduction which hage since been confirmed.

Has their pay been reduced by 10% or just their hours?

Yes. Hours and pay been cut for everyone

So there are some people with a 10% pay cut and 10% reduction in hours? And other people with a 20% pay cut and 20% reduction in hours? That is the point I am trying to make, that the pay cut is equitable to the number of hours. If so then I think there is a case to be made to the SMT that you were lead to believe that everyone was having the same 20% hours/pay cut, but in reality that has not been the case, and that those on 20% reductions should therefore be offered the change to change their reductions to 10% should they so wish.

One of the people on 20% fought to get less reduction as pregnant and so the period her maternity pay will be based on during this period but was refused as we were told it was necessary for the 20% reduction from a cashflow perspective. One of the one only reduced iby 10% is also pregnant so that also seek very unfair as she will have less impact on her maternity pay

i think my main issue is the fact that they stressed it had to be 20% across everybody to make it fair and it turns out that isnt true and they have hoped we wouldnt notice the discrepancy

Wow they discriminated against a pregnant woman by not treating her the same as another pregnant woman - they are on very dodgy legal ground there. The best way to handle it would be via your union - if you don't have one then you can still mobilise other employees to make the case to the SMT. I would probably call ACAS for some advice on how to handle this.

Might the distinction be that 20% would take some people below minimum wage, so they had a 10% cut?

I am pretty certain that i am the lowest earner and i have been reduced by 20%.

Definitely give ACAS a ring: https://www.acas.org.uk/contact/get-advice