Wage reduction & complete shift change

[Nevakonaza]

So the company i work for,are going to be making some significant changes in the next few weeks with potential redundancy's and completely changing peoples working hours as they need to save up to 100 working hours a week to hit their "Target budgets".

Now, The way the are going about this is they want me and a couple of other people to not only completely change my current shift pattern from 11pm-6am to 4am-11am but also want me to take a pay cut as il be loosing 10 hours unsocial pay a week.
Now since 2010 ish I've been on a contract with them that regardless of what hours i work,im on a set rate of just under £10 an hour due to the shift that i work on because i work throughout the night so i get an unsocial allowance, where as most of the other team do not work throughout the entire night so are not on the same contract, they basically want to cut my wage down from £10 ish an hour to 8.72,Which is quite a significant drop with also loosing 10 hours unsocial pay on top too.

They are not cutting my hours, But are completely changing my shifts, less pay and expecting the same amount of work if not more if people get made redundant.
My question is, Is this actually legal them dropping my wage like this?

 

[Nevakonaza]

Certainly starting at 4AM would still be anti-social to me. I'd be chatting to Citizens Advice or ACAS, but how much notice have they given you? And an actual reduction in per hour pay, before any additional payment, wouldn't wash with me.

The way the company works it, Anything from 11pm to 6am is considered "unsocial" and gets an unsocial bonus of £ few something on top of minimum wage. After 6am this unsocial pay bonus stops, so if your working till 8 or 9am after 6am you'll be on NMW.
However, because there is 3 of us that are NOT on the above contract ^^ we work 11-6 all the time we have a different contract so we get unsocial and are on just under £10 an hour REGARDLESS..so if i work till 8 or 9 i still get that just under £10 an hour because our contracts are different.

I wouldn't agree to start at 4am without shift pay for working unsociable hours.

Also, how much notice do they intend to give you?

well the 4-6am would be unsocial pay, anything after that is NMW under their new plan.
as of right now, the have only told us verbally, We have not been given any letter or anything official.

To be clear, are you currently on minimum wage of £8.72 and the shift allowance takes you to £10ish an hour?

correct yes, Although as of right now before the proposed changes even if i worked till 8 or 9 am id still get unsocial because i work constant nights shifts and my contract says "Nights permanent", where as the other 16 or so workers do not, this is what they're trying to do is take away my shift allowing from 6am onwards to save money for themselves but expect me to be fine with it.

So my understanding for ease, you're on just under £10 so lets call it £9.50 for ease.

But you get an unsocial allowance which takes you to £13 an hour for each hour worked in a certain bracket say before 7AM and after 7PM.

No,the way i put it is probably confusing its hard to put it into words, but have a look at my reply to mischief

Current situation..

• Me and 3 other workers = Permanent night shift (11pm - 6am) = £10 an hour that's everything unsocial etc.. Pay does not drop after 6am..continues on £10 an hour.
• other 16 workers = early mornings 4am starts. They get NML +unsocial pay till 6am then it stops and just NMW till 8am when they finish.

New proposed situation..

• Me and 2 other workers = Permanent night shift 4am - 11pm = NMW + unsocial pay till 6am then will be NMW throughout the rest of the shift after 6am.so we will only get 2 hours unsocial in our entire shift.
• other 16 workers = early mornings 4am - 8am NMW + Unsocial pay till 6am (basically their shift and pay doesn't change!)

I feel the only people who are getting shafted big time are us 4 that do the 11pm night shift,Both wage wise and times.

 

[Nevakonaza]

In what way are your contracts different?

3 of us are on "permanent nights" aka permanent night rate = unsocial

The rest of the staff are "early mornings" so they only get unsocial rate from 4am-6am only.

What is Acas?

 

[Nevakonaza]

Acas | Making working life better for everyone in Britain Independent workers advice and negotiation between companies and unions on neutral ground.

Cheers for that, I didn't even know this existed to be honest but I'm not sure they will be much help as it clearly states on their website "We cannot give an opinion or Legal Advice"