Work writes

Informal talks best way to get promised pay rate

I work for an organisation that pays higher rates in the job I do if you have a particular qualification. Before I joined, I was sent a letter saying I would get the higher rate, as I have the qualification. But when the contract arrived, it was for the lower level.

I rang the HR department, who expressed surprise at this but gave the impression that it was a clerical error that could easily be corrected later. I signed the contract because there would have been a delay in my start date otherwise. My employer is now refusing to pay the salary increase. It gets the money from an outside funding agency that has said it will not pay. Can you advise?

· You do have some rights in law - but they do not greatly improve your position in practice.

It is possible for the terms of a written employment contract to be overridden by arrangements agreed in a conversation. So, in theory, your overall contract could mean that you are due the higher rate. But some written employment contracts exclude this possibility by including a clause saying that they represent the entirety of the employment agreement and will overrule any agreements made orally. Look carefully at your contract, or you might want to take it to a solicitor.

Assuming that your employ ment contract does not contain such a clause, the situation then is that your employer is in breach of contract for paying you less than the amount agreed. If it will not pay the higher rate, you could resign and take a claim against it in court. (You could not go the unfair dismissal route as you have not been there a year, the qualifying period for this.) But the most you would get through a court would be the difference between the two rates for the period you worked there and your notice period. (This is because the organisation could fairly dismiss you if it did not have the funding for the higher rate.)

If you stay working there for more than a few months, you will be deemed by your behaviour to have accepted the lower pay rate.

If you want to keep your job, then informal negotiation may be the best route, both with the person who sent you the original letter and with your HR department. Is there a chance, perhaps, that the funding agency would review the situation? It would be interesting to get the view of your trade union, which might be able to exert moral pressure and to fight your corner.

Redundancy offer is best you will get

I'm being declared redundant, but my pay-off is
much lower than a friend received from his
company. What are my rights?

· In short, employees are entitled to the statutory
minimum (which is not very generous) unless they are
covered by a redundancy policy with their particular
employer through which they will be paid more.

So, if you are only entitled to the statutory minimum,
you get a week's pay for each year of service you have
clocked up under the age of 41. Older workers get 1.5
weeks of pay for each year of service after their 41st
birthday. The particularly bad news is that the week's
pay is capped at ?270. (And if any of your years of
service occurred when you were 21 or under, you get
just half a week's pay per year of service for that
period.) But many employers are more sympa thetic
than this to employees who lose their jobs through
redundancy. It is not unusual to find organisations
offering one month's pay, uncapped, for each year of
service.

You do not have any kind of extra claim if your
employer has complied with statutory requirements
and with its own policies. The amounts paid by another
employer are irrelevant here.

· Legal advice from Law For All (020 8758 0668) and Human and Legal Resources