Rights on contract change please?

[mykiddies]

All employees on old contracts have been asked to sign a new contract so all employees are on current standard contract as part of cost saving exercise after redundancies were made. It has been changed to 2 weeks full pay for absence in any twelve month rolling period at the firm's discretion. Change to take effect from 1 April. Notified that changes were to be made 3 Feb. There are around 10 people on old contracts. A few seem to not want to let others know if they are signing or not. I am just concerned that some might refuse to sign and some might sign. Could they be doing this to see if anyone will sign it knowing that legally it is not right so that if anyone said they weren't happy they could say `that's ok then'. What could happen if you said you wouldn't sign? Do they have rights to do this? Any advice would be appreciated.

Your employer needs your consent to change your contract. If you sign, then the proposed change is perfectly legal. Do you not want to sign?

Here about changing terms and conditions, and here about what happens if you don't agree.

An employer can't force you to sign a new contract - they can ask you to consider it, if you consider to be un-beneficial to sign then they either need to change it to make it acceptable to you or let you stay on the old contract. You are completely within your rights to refuse to sign. They cannot subsequently use this refusal as a reason for any other decisions.

However, the employees could be a bit cleverer about this then it sounds as though they're being... if you all team up together it will be a lot easier to say 'no' as a united group. It sounds as though your employer is playing 'divide and conquer' knowing you'll all be too scared to say no.

Too slow! Obviously I agree with flowery (and am in awe of her link finding speed).

Flowery is right - you do not have to sign a new contract and especially one that is less beneficial than the one you are on.

If they sacked you or made you redundant for not signing the new contract that would be unfair dismissal.

So what would you do in this situation. I have til Monday to make any objection. And a week after that to sign it. Nobody seems to be asking anyone to get together. One girl today that I asked actually said have no idea what anyone else is doing am too busy to even think about it but yet another girl said she had said she couldn't sleep the night before thinking about it. Why do you think she said that? I was wondering if I said I wasn't signing could I lose my job or if any more redundancies were made I could be one of them because of this?

Read my post (and others above) above. They cannot force you. If they sack you for not signing you can sue them for unfair dismissal

If the contract is worse than the one you are on then do not sign.

Do not be bullied. It seems like a lot of firms are up to this sort of thing at the moment.

But I am afraid that if more redundancies come up I could be one of them. Do I need to put my objection in writing or verbally. What if I was the only one who didn't sign? Would you find out from the other girls involved what they were doing? I wouldn't even know what to say if I was to voice my objections.

I would just write a very short and simple letter saying that you do not want to sign the new contract and wish to carry on with your old contract.

You do not have to say why. Indeed, the less you write the better. Just keep it very simple and keep any paperwork you get from them very carefully filed at your home. Be especialy careful to take a printed out copy of any related emails you receive and take them home with you. You may need them. Try not to enter into correspondence yourself but keep very careful and full notes of yoru meetings. Write everything down they say to you at meetings.

If they then pick on you after your refusal to sign or put pressure on you to sign you can sue them. For example, if they sacked or made you redundant and it was only people who had the old contract that got sacked or made redundant that treatment that would be prima facie evidence of unfair dismissal.

Even if you could not show that dirctly, they would still have to justfy their decision to a tribunal and show they acted fairly. Most firms just mess this process up completely so you would still have a good chance of winning compensation.

Even just putting undue pressure on you to sign can be treated as constructive dismissal. Moving you to a horrble job or other such treatment can also be used by you to sue for constructive dismissal.

I am not a lawyer by the way. I would join a Union if you can.

I disagree with ABetaDad about not telling your employer why you don't want to sign. This is a consultation period. They are proposing a change, which you are within your rights to refuse, but they can potentially force it through and part of that process is giving you the opportunity to raise any concerns you have. If you don't raise concerns but just refuse to sign, you are not being reasonable.

If you look at the link I posted, what happens when you refuse is that the employer can decide whether they want to try to force it through or not. They can dismiss you and re-employ you immediately on the new terms, and it would then be up to you to claim unfair dismissal. If they have made every effort to consult with you, and listen to your concerns, and if there is a genuine business reason for the change, you may struggle to win an unfair dismissal case. If you claim unfair dismissal and you haven't told your employer what your concerns were and given them every opportunity to address them, your case will be even weaker.

What they are doing is trying to demonstrate that they are doing their best to consult and listen to concerns. They are asking you to raise concerns by Monday to give them an opportunity to address those concerns. Should those concerns not be addressed to your satisfaction by a week later, then you would not sign.

I would suggest you speak to as many of the others involved as possible and find out their thoughts. Acting together is always better. If you have concerns about the proposal, raise them as requested by Monday - I would do it in writing. Just say that at present you are not planning to consent to the changes proposed because you are concerned about x,y,z way that it will have a negative effect on you. Say that, should your concerns not be addressed, you will not be signing the new contract.

I have spoken to one other person this morning and by the sounds of it she is not prepared to rock the boat. She sees it as an individual thing for everyone to make their own mind up about and with the current climate the way it is going she can understand their point of view.

She also said that in 19 years she has never had the need to take off longer than that so it's not an issue for her!!

How big a change is it mykiddies? What's your sick pay arrangement now?

Well we get paid 3 months full pay now so from that to two weeks.

I am not prepared to go this alone. I think everyone is going to sign.

So what happens if you do decide to sign, then get made redundant in the next round?

That's quite a big change. If you all got together you could go back to them and proposed a gradual reduction, or a similar compromise, but if everyone else is happy to sign, that will be difficult for you to do obviously.

If you don't sign, that can't be a reason for making you redundant or similar, but as I've said, they may well terminate your contract and re-employ taking the reasonable gamble that you alone won't claim unfair dismissal, and that even if you did, it is unlikely to be successful.

Whether you agree or not, if there are more redundancies, you should be treated like anyone else in terms of how they select people.

2 people spoken to don't want to either let on what they're doing or don't want to rock the boat. It is a big change. I don't want to ask everybody involved because they're being a bit shifty and i have discovered it's not a workplace where everyone pulls together. Things get passed about. So I don't want to be seen as the only one going around asking what are you doing. They just do their own thing. At the same time I don't want to be the only one to be signing in the end so this is what i'm trying to find out.

mykiddies - perhaps the best advice here is to simply start looking for another job.

Obviously not at all easy in the current climate but to be honest with a round of redundancies already, a very significant downgrade to your employment rights being proposed and the rest of the workforce clearly unwilling to discuss things with each other the whole situation is obviously 'not a happy ship'.

flowerybeanbag - I agree the OP should not appear unreasonable but I would certainly go no further in a letter than stating in one simple sentence the contract term(s) she feel is unreasonable and making it clear that is the reaosn she is not willing to sign the new contract.

I presume that the main reason would be the very signinificant shortening of sickness entitlement. Any Tribunal would accept that as a clear and resonable ground for refusal to sign the new contract. I say again though, the OP should avoid going into a long winded explanation just in case she inadvertently undermines her case.

Saying less is always better in these cases. The OP would always get a chance to explain her reason more fully at a Tribunal if she had to go down that route. As I understand it, the employer has now got to do most of the explaining under the new Tribunal regime anyway and the onus is on it to show it acted reasonably.

ABetaDad - well obviously those would be perfectly reasonable grounds for refusal, however you were advocating not giving any reasons at all, just refusing to sign, in fact you said it would actually be better not to give any reason.

Doing that would give the employer no reasonable opportunity to address concerns. I wasn't suggesting a longwinded explanation, and it may seem obvious to all parties what the employees concerns would be, but the OP has been specifically asked to state any objections by Monday with a view to signing a few days later, so refusing to sign without having stated those objections wouldn't be nearly as reasonable, and certainly wouldn't actively help her case.

mykiddies do you have any reason to believe there will be further redundancies? Do you like working there otherwise?

flowerybeanbag - no I do not like it never have but I get the hours I want so I have stuck it out.

Incidentally I have spoken to 4 others and they are willing and have said they are going to say they are not happy. We will do this Monday hopefully whether it be individually or in a group - it depends on the person who is being sent this (who is not here today) whether to call a meeting or see everyone separately. So we have got a little further. I like your suggestion about gradual reduction to up it from what has been suggested and everyone thinks that is a good idea but to wait and see what they say first. Does everyone need to say they're not happy - we have at least 6.

There very well could be further redundancies but ATM it has not affected the dept. I work in.

Well that's good news if there is a group of you, much better - even if you get called individually if you are all saying the same that's positive. It doesn't matter if not everyone says they are not happy, but it's obviously better. I would think the others are more likely to join in if you tell them that you are all objecting together though, so maybe try to speak to them again now you have a bit of a consensus.

flowerybeanbag - I personally would not offer any explanation at all but leave it until the employer called me in to discuss it. If the OP does feel it necessary to give an explanation I just think she should keep it very very short and then let the employer justify its decision to impose the contract change to her rather than the other way round.

That is all I am saying.

flowerybeanbag - I don't know about the first 2 about approaching again. The first girl has ignored me since and I don't think I am willing to mention it to her again. I don't know what the problem is. Do you think I should post her anyway just to say this is what we are doing if you want to come fine it's up to you. I think I will wait come Monday because some have said they are going to have a word and others have said `we're' going in so I will have to verify that. For all I know she might have decided to do this herself anyway but isn't letting on!!

Flowerybeanbag is right. I am an empoyment lawyer and we have been doing a lot of this for companies lately. If you do not sign they will serve notice on you and unilaterally change your contract. If you refused to sign and claimed unfair dismissal you would not get a compensatory award because you could have retained your job (albeit on different sickness terms). You would therefore be out of a job.

To be honest most companies doing this are doing it in reltion to a cut in salary so I would just feel thankful that it is only sick pay that is affected.

Just to stress that you would have failed to mitigate your loss and so would not get a compensatory award in tribunal. ABetaDad is wrong I'm afraid.
How long have you worked there?