Forced pay cut

[TOPTON]

A friend works as a nursery teacher in a local authority nursery/infant/primary school. The school has been on special measures for a few months now as the original head (forced retirement, should have been sacked but that's another story) was so inept at doing his job.

There is now a temporary head from another school 5 miles away (so running 2 schools) to sort things out. She has spent school money on new office equipment and moving offices around to suit her way of doing things.

To the point>>>

My friend and her colleague (both nursery and lowest paid) were summoned by the head yesterday and told the school was in debt and they would have to take a pay cut or face redundancy. Only those two, no other teachers or staff were included in this money saving idea.

Is this legal

[randlemarcus]

NUT or NASUWT? Either should be helpful here.

[RizzoTheRat]

I worked for a big multinational some years back who decided to bring in a 10% pay cut for all staff. Apparently in the US they just brought it in but UK employment regulations meant they couldn't here and had to ask us all if we would be willing to accept a 10% pay cut. Unsurprisingly few accepted it.

However the other way of looking at it is if they need to cut costs making some people redundant is the usual way of doing it. If they're offering the chance to avoid redundancy by taking a pay cut it might be worth accepting it.

[anonymous-user]

Seems a simple choice if a necessary one. What would they prefer, no job or lower pay?

[TOPTON]

While I agree a pay cut is better than redundancy, I would have thought a pay cut for everyone would be the legal way to go, not just picking out a couple of staff. Especially the lowest paid ones, because that now means the two nursery teachers would be getting paid less than their contract says they should

[Johnnytheboy]

I'd start job hunting. Good staff in that sector must be in fairly constant demand.

Or is recruitment a bit "seasonal" based on the school year?

[anonymous-user]

If it was me I would talk to an employment lawyer immediately. There are very strict procedures that have to be followed before making staff redundant, threatening them with it if they don't take a pay cut is a certainly not one of those processes.