Fredcarnie

Hello Thank you for answering my previous questions, But I am unclear as to waht to do this coming Friday as The boss has already said his wife wants him to close the business and pack it in, and he keeps refering to this, so when he says sign the reduced hours contract from full time to less than part time hours and threatens you know where the door is if you don't we are all frightend not to sign and most of us have been full time for 10 or more years . you have told that reduncy and holidays would become pro-rata according to the new hours . as we all fear for our jobs anyway is there anything you would advise us to say or do when it becomes time to sign this new contract which he says may be temporary, but if that was the case then why the new contract? many thanks for your avice so far and many thanks in advance .Thank you

Sorry I forgot to say our boss said this new contract is the law, or has implied this to us all.

OK - stick to one thread please. It helps me to remember everything you have said.

Your boss is lying. It is not the law that you have to sign - it is your right in law not to. So frightened or not - you must refuse. If you do not refuse then you are agreeing - you cannot go back again afterwards and say that you were bullied - your agreement is final.

To be a temporary measure, then you would have to agree with your employer a temporary variation with a specific reason, time period, and review date. He is getting you to do this to reduce what he will have to pay you for redundancy (amongst other things). In 12 weeks time he can serve you redundancy notice and clacluate your redundancy entitlement on the lower salary.

You must do absolutely everything in writing to create an evidence trail. So you write and you say what he has said to you and what your response is. Do not have conversations - if you must discuss it you immediately write a letter confirming all that is said on both sides and keep copies. You must all do this and stick together.

From what you say I think he has already decided to get rid of you all and is looking to find a way of doing this at no, or minimal, cost. Which is why I suspect that the next move may be disciplinary proceedings to dismiss some of you. You really must get records of everything. And I wouldn't tell you to make secret recordings of your conversations, but it would be a real shame if your mobile phone accidentally recorded the whole of conversations....