My Employment Rights

Varying Terms & Conditions

If your employer seeks to change your terms and conditions generally speaking it will have to obtain your consent. If it fails to do so, it could amount to a breach of contract or unlawful deduction from wages. If it is a substantial change, you might also be able to claim unfair dismissal.

In most cases, the employer will therefore need to obtain your consent to the changes. Usually this will involve writing to you and/or meeting with you to explain the changes and to obtain your agreement.

If you do not agree, the employer will have to look at alternative approaches:

It may, for example, try to rely on a right to change terms contained within your contract of employment. Whether or not it can do so will depend on the wording of the clause, plus the nature of the change. It is worth saying that there is a limit to the flexibility this kind of clause can give to an employer and therefore it should only normally be used for relatively minor changes. It the change is not within the scope of the contractual right, it will give rise to a potential claim.

It may simply decide to impose the change on the employees. This potentially amounts to a fundamental breach of the contract and would potentially give the right to claim. If you continue to work without protest, you will eventually be deemed to have accepted the change, but it depends on the type of change, in particular how quickly it actually impacts on you, that will decide how long it is before the change is deemed accepted.

It may give notice to terminate your employment on the existing terms and offer re-engagement on the new terms. This is a last resort approach to change of terms and is not done lightly. The main reason for this is that by giving notice, the employer is actually dismissing you. It therefore has to show that it does not amount to an unfair dismissal. To do so it will have to show the dismissal is SOSR as a legitimate and reasonable business decision. It will also have to show that the benefit of change to the business outweighs the disadvantage to employees. It will be up to you to decide whether to take the alternative role. If you do not, your claim for unfair dismissal may be limited in compensation. Alternatively, even if you accept the job, you can still claim unfair dismissal for any loss of earnings suffered.