Hi all
Firstly let me say I am happy that currently I still have full time work.
Just wondering if anyone else has had a circumstance where their employer has asked all staff to take a 20% pay cut, but keep the same hours - as oppoyto a 20% wage cut by dropping to 4 days instead.
Thanks
Work Reducing Wages by 20% - Same Hours
JuryWheel on 22/04/2020 - 15:58
Comments
+1
It is good to hear that people still value being employed when jobs are scarce instead of whinging about changed working conditions.
I heard about this through a friend.
I'm sure impacted employees will be "adjusting" their work habits accordingly …
Bear in mind that leave is paid out at your current rate - so if you take a 20% cut in pay, any accrued leave you have is also effectively reduced in value by 20%. If you take a 20% drop in hours, then your rate per hour remains the same and your leave value remains the same.
In my company all salaries have dropped by 20% (higher effective cut for executive level positions, where they get the 20% cut but also all bonuses gone), but hours are cut by 20% also, so a bit more free time and no hourly rate cut and drop in leave value.
Salary cut is to be reviewed 1 July to see where things are at and hopefully reinstated.
We have been told leave will be paid out at its full rate….going to be tricky in finance over this period!
So long as they've made that assertion and put it in writing then that's good to hear :)
I've taken a 20% pay cut, but with free childcare and JobKeeper effectively being a pay rise for my wife we're pretty much breaking even so it's not too bad here - so far.
Not so much finance but more payroll that's going to have to deal with all this!
My employer asked us to tkae a paycut inline with our business turnover reducing. I rejected his offer. I pointed out to him that during my 12 years with the organisation it has grown anywhere from 5% to 15% in any given year, yet I never recieved a pay rise each year in line with the increase in performance of the business, so I would not accept a reduction now in line with the business performance.
I suggested to him after 12 years of employment if he wished to make me redundant, and offer me a payout I would be happer to consider. The payout would be significantly more than the saving he would make in reducing my wages by 20% for the next few months. I have 30 weeks leave on accrual, plus long service leave. My payout would be around 42 weeks pay, plus any redundancy payment, so it would end up close to 50 weeks worth of pay - for him to save 4 weeks worth of salary over 3-4 months.
haha at least you've got a plan figured out!
What type of employer do you have in terms of pay structure? At a lot of big firms where you go between projects, your direct boss on your current role usually gets very little say on your actual pay. It's all done by payroll/HR and the general company structure. Would be interesting to see how that would work in that kind of case.
Incredibly bad management by you work to let you accrue so much leave! Leaves them liable for so much! Ha. Ours would normally force leave once it hits around 6-8 weeks! Good on you though :)
Question: are redundancy payouts an actual legal requirement? You can't just make someone redundant, make them work their period (normally 1 week per year, up to max of 4)?Wouldn't some call that dangerous letting your leave accrue like that for long periods of time? I've heard of stories where people weren't able to claim their leave payout because their company went into administration.
It's quite funny how no one paid us 20% extra when business was booming and we all had to bust our a$$ putting in extra hours every week because it came with the full time role but now when the stakes are down 20% pay cut because we ain't got no work.
As per the legal arrangement under capitalist order of governance, the surplus made by the workers belong to the employers not employees. This should not come as a surprise when you vote I guess. If one is a working class person and vote for bosses government then one must be a special kind of ignorant who hits the axe on his own leg.
I disagree with your comments. Looking at other countries, I think the current governments (federal and state) have done an extraordinary good job in handling this crisis. There is always room for improvement in everything you do and this is no different. There are things that could have been done better but overall they are all doing a good job.
yea like let everyone off the ruby princess despite knowing. great job!
@bigbadboogieman: the living circumstances in australia is what kept our transmission rates low. early on in the pandemic, a friend of mine contracted the virus. my friend had to beg to be tested, and turned out positive. it was a joke and we're just lucky that we didn't get any major spreaders. another friend caught it and spread it to everyone he knew. we did too little too late, and im no rudd fan, but rudd agrees fwiw
Reduce effort by >20%
If this was imposed on me I'd definitely spend 20% of my time (profanity) around and doing other things around the house during work hours.
I do feel for all the people losing their jobs. I feel lucky that my workplace and industry are able to ride this storm. What I do not get is the fact that my some of my co workers haven't lifted their game and are still slacking off. Do they think they are bullet proof?
Management problems , with labor cost in this country I would promptly get rid of them and get some Amazon like productive workers .
Merged from 20% Paycut - No Reduction in Hours
My place of work has reduced everyone's pay by 20% for 6 month's in response to COVID. They also have forced leave 1 day a fortnight.
We still work our 38 hour 5 day weeks.
Is it 'fair' to cut salaries but expect the same amount of hours to be done?
Similar companies have taken the route of forced 1 day leave every week. Which means 20% less pay but 20% less work.
Thanks!
No. If there was less works then everyone should take a 20% cut in hours, and keep th same hourly rate.
Yeah that's my sentiment
Their justification was that there's less money coming in from regular clients so in order to stay afloat they need to dock the entire business 20%
But there's still plenty of residual work to be done in my department which I assume they are pressing us to do more billable work do they can make up for the lack of cash flow
But going in this direction will only make us run out of work faster
Are you working 38 hours per week + 1 day leave a fortnight? Or working 30+38 hours a fortnight?
Is it fair? No
Is it allowed? I don't believe there is any law saying they can't unless you have a very specific EBACould always talk with your legs and go to another job……
Could always talk with your legs and go to another job……
That sounds so easy but is it?
How about the OP tells the employer that they will do 20% less production for the same reason? Would they be OK with it?
38 one week 30 (1 day leave) the next
Nah we do not and they are saying to sign the agreement for it or "more redundancies will have to occur" basically seems like a threat.
In my industry alot of companies have tightened up hiring for the minute but yes definitely worth searching anyway
if you disagree with don't sign it, and cop the redundancy
In which field is that ?
Engineering - Land development
If anything construction is going at a faster pace. Construction site next to me is going full time (student accommodation, not that there will be any occupants), a friend is saying the architectural firm he is working for is doing overtime to get all approvals pushed through.
COVID's bought out the worst in employers. Including those who thinks that Job Keeper is to fatten their bottom line. I know one guy who is trying to get all their employees who he holds self employed (illegal as disguised employment) onto self employed Job Keeper and asking them to all work full time.
I'm in same situation but just taking it because there's not many other choices right now - not like I could leave and jump right into another role at this time.
Yeah I feel ya
It will pay you to consider this from an alternative aspect … is this preferable to 20% of the workforce getting the boot? Is this preferable to you getting the boot?
But if 20% of people got the boot, that means 20% less work is being done (because 20% of people are not there to do it)
For OP they are getting 20% less, but they are not doing 20% less work.Yeah, nah. In many businesses, the fact you are getting 20% less revenue does not at all mean you have 20% less work. It may well be the case that the 80% of people left still have close to 100% of the work to do.
It's not that linear I think….
You can work 100% more but that may not translate to 100% more revenue so it goes without saying for vice versa.
@burningrage: So if there are 100 people. They are doing a certain amount of work. Let’s call it 100%. You start Doing nothing different except paying people 80%. You are still getting the benefit of 100% of work being done. So now you get 100% of work for 80% of the cost.
Now, you change your mind and instead let 20% of people go, you are now only getting 80 people x 100% of work. That means 80% of work for 80% of pay.
Revenue is not a factor in any of this because that is not what I am talking about. I was simply addressing seraphin7 saying the alternative to having their pay cut was to losing 20% of staff.
What might be fair would be if the company pays back the 20% if and when they get back to normal.
I take it they don't give staff a 20% bonus when things are going well?
Would be nice haha
Nah company doesn't do bonuses
Did you sign a new contract agreeing to take 20% less? They can certainly ask everybody to take a pay cut for a period of time however an employee cannot elect to pay you less without you agreeing to it. Was the option provided to either agree to a reduced wage or be made redundant?
The more obvious choice would be to stand employees down one day a week either at no pay or as leave depending on employees' preference, as many organizations including my own have decided to do. Out of curiosity has your employer qualified for JobKeeper?
You probably have a workplace agreement (like an employment contract) but it is underpinned by the Professional Employees Award (MA000065). Your employer can only exceed the conditions in that award, not provide less. I would be surprised if a blanket pay cut without corresponding work hour reductions was legal.
I'm at an engineering firm and we had the choice to reduce our salary with a corresponding reduction in hours. So we've had many staff go on reduced hours, with many taking up new contracts to remain permanent part-time. The management team took pay cuts but did not reduce hours though. We're also required to take a day of annual leave each fortnight, or more, if billable work is not there.
I would be checking with the FWO regarding the legality of the pay cut without reduced hours, particularly if it just came via a group email.
You will need to agree for them to enforce the 20% pay reduction.
But consider what they will do if you do not agree.
This. They have probably worked it out that legally they must be asking for you to do it voluntarily… with a gun aimed at your head.
the answer is, despite what you think, will you cop it as it good to have a job right now.
if having a job where you get 80% of your wage is better than sitting at home doing sfa then id be ok with it.
and given the fact the 6 months is either side of the tax year, it may only be 67% etc of 20% you are losing. ie ~ 13%
Just don't agree to it.
They won't do a thing and you'll probably be getting paid your normal salary while everyone else just accepted the cut.
Worst case is you'll be made redundant with a nice little payout. Then just go on JobSeeker and chill while you find a less fragile company to work for.
except redundancies can be avoided during covid 19 as per current fair work rulings
*if Jobseeker is in play.
Based on the info you are giving it is not fair matter of fact im pretty sure it is illegal
They have to offer you redundancy depending on what your payout conditions are it might not be worth losing your job in the current climate
however if EVERYONE DOESNT SIGN IT you might have a case to have it knocked back because they simply cant 'pay out everyone'
This is a good time to be part of the Union or create a Union
Just super unlucky timing… :(