Reduction of pay salary employees

Ty

What is the ruling for reducing the payroll for salary employees. Does this have to be in writing or can it be relayed to the employee in an oral agreement. The partners of our company discussed this with the employee, then informed my dept. and told me when to do this, I ass umed that this was a mutual agreement since I was given the ok to do this from the partners. Please respond ASAP I have an irrate employee.

Don D

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 11-15-02 AT 10:31AM (CST)[/font][p]The 'hurry-up' answer would be to tell him, "I'm doing exactly what I was told to do." The long, sensible answer is to back up a few steps and ask one of the partners to explain exactly what happened and ask them for something for the file. But, in the absence of a contract, an employer is at liberty to change the salary for a position. There need not be a 'mutual agreement'. My employer can tell my my salary has been reduced, effective X-date and I don't have to agree with it. As to the level of liability or tension headed your way, you really haven't given us enough information.

Ty

Don in checking further(his contract which the partners didn't feel they needed to do) there is a clause that states Modification--No change or modification of this agreement shall be valid unless the same be in writing and signed by the parties hereto. This is a medical facility and we know that doctors do know how to read their contracts when it pertains to them. I feel that they have not thought this all the way thru before making the descision, haste makes waste. I feel with what is in the contract the senior partners need to pay the doctors. What do you feel

thanks for your response

Don D

What I think is that Doctor's have no business messing with any contract other than their own. Either an in-house attorney or a knowledgeable HR professional should be the one monitoring contract compliance and changes. Now that this debacle has occured, in order to avoid the lawsuit that probably is already in motion, you must reverse it quickly to make the person whole. If there was a contract in place as you say and some pin-head decided to alter it not in accordance with its terms, somebody must be flogged! Don't let it be you.

Ty

Don

In talking to the partners after they created this problem I was able to convince them that under this situation they would be better of and it would cost them alot less money if they went ahead and paid the doctors their regular salary and if they wanted to make changes in the future that they needed to put such in writing and also to give a time span of 30 or 45 days heads-up that this was going to take place.

Don thanks again for your input, and you are correct one of the doctor's told me he was going to pursue this further. He did say he knew that I was not aware of what had occurred at the onset.

Rockie

Number one lesson: Don't do anything by "oral agreement". If anything is to be changed, it should be in writing. Number two lesson: Never change a contract without an attorney's input. Contracts are tricky, tedious instruments which can cause you a boatload of problems. Initially, they are usually drawn up by attorneys and any revisions should be reviewed by them in order to make sure you have not breached the contract.

The money you spend doing this is well worth it.