DH been demoted without warning and looking at a £100K pay cut.

[WifeandMotherof4]

He went to work on Friday as SD and came home a sales manager....
Apparently his immediate boss is looking to go 'forward' in a different direction than he believes my DH can take them in. (there is no further explanation). We know this is illegal and there's nothing he can do as he can still earn £90k and couldn't elsewhere.
I think he should try and get a better package, at the moment they're offereing a £15k parachute payment and reducing his basic to £40k. They are a shoddy twattish company who he has worked for for over 13 years. Our outgoings are £3800 per month and we will probably have to move and take our children out of their (quite cheap) private school. There is also current business to get commission from in January which at 3% he'd get £18k ( at worst £9k) and they've demoted him now to give his replacement good weeks to start his new job....this is their best time.
I am at a loss as to what to advise my Dh besides giving him a pistol full of bullets!!!

Thinking about the children (no child wants to change schools) I'd speak to the school and see if you can come to some arrangement, your dh might get another job, in the meantime, I expect, you could find the money if you really needed to (sell a car?). If the children do have to go to state school it wouldn't be the end of the world you know. They will survive. Better than you might think.

Hope it works out for you. Lots of people are being hit by the credit crunch. You may not get much sympathy.

from what you say though the commission is not guaranteed to be paid on time?

You don't cover your outgoings if they don't pay the commission on time though.

Huge sympathies what a pile of crap

Possible to downsize the house? Do you have a lot of equity you can release and move into rented til you sue the arses of them and get some of your money back?

Is he in a union?

You definitely need some legal advice

what is 'SD'?

sales director probably - and then demoted to sales manager

You need some advice from Flowerybeanbag. For now I would get him to write down everything he can recall from his conversations with his boss in case he needs information for any legal case. It's much better to do this when it's fresh in your mind.

Re. school: can you approach the head and ask for (temporary, you hope) financial assistance? Not all private schools can afford to help, but some can and do. £1400 per term sounds like a pretty good deal to me for a private school, and it suggests that the head won't automatically assume that all parents are loaded down with money. It might be worth an ask. The idea of children having to move schools is horrible for anyone (my great fear in life is that we'll have to take the DCs out of school!!)

As a not-very-wealthy private-school parent, I know all sorts of ways to economise if you do really do want to keep your DCs at their school. In order to keep the DCs at their school, we have no holidays, no 'luxuries' (like hairdressing, gyms, trips to anywhere that costs anything - such as the cinema, theatre, concerts, museums which charge entry fees...), no new clothes (I frequent the charity shops), and an ancient crumbly car (I sold mine when I gave up work). Christmas and birthdays are modest; DH and I set a limit of £20 each last year (so we did things like plant spring bulbs for one another). Our one luxury is an annual National Trust card (which gives us lots of 'free' days out!!)

It does make for a rather curtailed existence by some standards (including my own - I always assumed that I'd have the same standard of living as an adult as I had had as a child!!), but I'd rather the DCs went to their lovely school than I had a haircut or a holiday!

The salary your DH would be getting in his new role is around three times my DH's salary (I am a SAHM), so from my perspective it seems huge. But your outgoings are also presumably far higher than ours at the moment. The good news is that it could well be possible not to move your DCs if you make some cut-backs, even if temporarily. It might not seem like much fun, but it has its own benefits!

Sorry to hear about this - change is difficult, and hard to get kids to understand and accept that the lifestyle they're used to will change.

What's a parachute payment? Is it compensation for taking a demotion and pay cut?

Your dh needs to speak to a specialist employment lawyer. Yes, the initial consultation may be a bit of an expense, but a well-worded letter from an employment letter may do wonders for your dh's boss's attitude to the 'direction' he wants to take the company in. He is trying to get away with a sly move here - may see it as not worth his while if he is going to be faced with a lawsuit. Good luck.

Parachute is a payment in stages to cushion the fall in income. Hence he'll get £2500 part payments until the beginning of March.

I appreciate there are people losing their jobs and we're lucky he still has a job, but with a newborn (of two weeks) and three other children I feel really helpless.

Thanks for all the helpful advice. He's too scared about a legal route as he thinks they'll just sack him and what would we live on in the meantime, plus who would hire him next???

Then you have to look at your outgoings. Cut back on everything and live within your new means. 3.8k a mth outgoings should be covered by a 90k salary.....isn't that about 5k a mth????

I definitely think your first step is to talk to the school - they might well be willing to negotiate delayed or reduced payments, especially in the current economic climate.

It also might help you to feel more positive if you sit down and ruthlessly go through your current outgoings and set yourself a realistic but reduced budget. What can you afford to cut back? You might find that you can afford this massive drop more easily than you thought and, even if that is not the case, you will feel better for having looked at it all properly and faced up to worse case scenario. Hope things work out!

I'm not sure I understand the arithmetic in the opening post. You say that he can still earn £90k (which would adequately cover your outgoings of £3.8k a month) then you say that his basic is now £40k with commission somewhere between £9k and £18k. So are you saying that his package is now around £49k - £58k?

You need Flowery for good employment law advice to make sure that the process they have been through is legal.

You also need to be clear about expenses and outgoings. I'n sure you are clear in your mind, but it's not come through in the posts I've read so far.

If your children are school age, is there a possibility that you could work and make up the shortfall to help your DCs stay at the school?

with a new baby ?

Sorry, didn't read the bit about the new baby. It doesn't stop the OP from looking for jobs now, though does it? It'll take a few months to line something up.

There are broadly two alternatives (disregarding any proper compensation that might be due, as the effects of that would be simply cushioning). Either increase the money coming in to fund the outgoings or to reduce the outgoings.

So far on this thread we've majored on the reducing the outgoings or on ensuring fair compensation. I was just trying to think of other ways of raising money if other jobs at the same level are not available for the OP's DH.

I can recommend a good employment lawyer if you need one. Just CAT me.

Quattro, the commission is left over from business brought in over the last three months that is outstanding.

He usually receives commission a week in hand every 2 weeks, iyswim. But this is delayed payments to tie in with Q1 budgets.

Q1 budgets? We're now halfway through Q3 - are they usually that slowing in paying? Or are they purposefully stalling?

I know that the OP has a good salary but the fact is that if you have a good wage a paycut with no or advance warning is a shock especially as many of us have a lifestyle that lives up to our earnings.

Dp and I don;t earn as much as the OP but earn a decent wage and we are in the shit at the moment as things are changing beyond our control.

sorry to hear about this turmoil,what a worry.go see employment solicitor pronto

£1400 a term is very very good for private school fees, I hope you can keep your children there I would not like to move my dd suddenly from her school.

Am glad other posters have said similar

Bad news.
Get some legal advice immediately and re-work your family budget.
I would assume £90k is still enough to pay for private school fees if this is a high priority. Don't be scared of the state sector though, most kids are absolutely fine there.

I hope you don't get any shitty comments re his salary, I think that is irevelant TBH, he has been treated appallingly.

At his new salary you would struggle to cope wouldn't you? I wouldn't want to move my children if they are happy and settled at school.

Hope you get good legal advice.

I am sorry to hear. Not easy to take kids out of school in practice. Definitely sounds like constructive dismissal. I am no lawyer but I am not sure that payout is that much. Be careful as lawyers fees can add up very quickly. Do you have a friend who can offer informal advice first.

After taking advice from lawyer can he then try to negotiate a better package with the firm. Perhaps a higher bonus incentive that could also benefit the firm. If he is pessimistic about external options then it might make sense to be flexible but try to get better package.

Again, I hope that you find a solution.