Redundancies made. Talk of changing contracts. Rights please?

[mykiddies]

Redundancies have been made in the firm I work and there has been mention of changing the contracts to be in line with everyone else. Anyone with long standing service ie. 10+ years is on a better contract to new employees in regard to level of sick pay. Do we have to sign new contracts?

You don't have to sign then, they are not the terms you were employed under. Make sur you read them completely before you do.

changes to terms and conditions can be assumed to be effective even if they are not signed - if staff do not actually make some kind of protest against them, then they will take effect.

If you do not agree to the changes you need to write to HR stating that you do not accept them and that they are detrimental to you and therefore you would regard it as a breach of contract for them to try to enforce these changes on you. The only circumstances where you cannot do this are where the changes have been agreed already by a union (or some other employee representative). If a union has agree dthe changes then you will need to lump it.

What the company will probably say is that they are legally required to bring all the contracts in line with regard to sick pay, because to leave things as they stand is Indirect Age Discrimnation (which looks about right as an explanation). However the company should have probably tried to bring the policies in line by meetign in the middle, rather than dropping to the lowest option. Ultimately the company may tear up your old contract and offer you the new one which if you don't accept it might lead to dismissal, but there shoudl be lots of discussion before that point and if they were being obviously unfair then you could claim constructive dismissal.

How has the policy changed? is it much worse than it was?

We do not know exactly what way they will be changed but it is in regard to the way you get paid for your sick. Older contracts get paid for 2 weeks and then SSP whereas older ones get full pay 3 months then half. Whether they will be brought down to this level we don't know yet