Advice please on contract of employment

Advice urgently needed. Am one of 16 new semi state recruits who applied for a job with an advertised salary scale. This has since been rescinded, only found out with our first pay packet 4 weeks later that we're on a much lower salary than advertised. 11 weeks on our phone calls and letters are not been answered ! Now we have received letters that have to be signed and returned within 14 days accepting low salary or it'll be presumed we are no longer interested in the position !

I understand why you would be bewildered! A few questions to clarify the situation?

Was this for permanent positions or contract roles?
Was your letter directly from the company or via an agency?
Did your offer letter explicitly detail the original higher salary?
Are you a member of a union?

Check out the DETE Employment rights page or contact them for advice on your specific situation.

This job offer was directly from the health board, permanent positions with the pay scale at the top of the job description. The jobs were advertised in 2002 with an age related payscale, because of employment ceilings they did not go ahead then but we were contacted in summer 2004 to see if we were still interested and issued with the same job description and "fictitious" salary scale. We were never informed that the salary scale had changed. We would not have left other jobs to take up positions at what we are now being paid.
Some of the 16 of us are members of impact and the rest of us are in the process of joining. The letters we received this week demanding signed acceptance and return within 14 days if we want our jobs, have put us under pressure, exactly what they intended to do, I suppose.
Our problem is if we don't sign what are the implications ? As I said we have worked 11 weeks at this stage

I don't have an exact answer for you. Perhaps other posters can help with this.

I does seem like fairly despicable behaviour. I'd be chasing DETE, Impact and maybe even the papers/media to get this resolved.

Thanks for your help Rainyday. I'm in shock still that a public body would treat staff like this
I'm confident that we'll win any challenge we take on this but the initial cost to us i.e. losing our jobs at this time of the year is a difficult one

don't sign it --won't affect statuary rights

get advice from union

Re: don't sign it --won't affect statuary rights

The update on this is that Impact have shown interest.
We are sending one case to the Rights Commissioner in January. Meanwhile we have all signed the contract "without prejudice"

Thanks for all who responded to this query before.

Just found out, my case is before the Rights Commissioner next week, finally. Has anyone any experience of this and advice on what toi expect ?

Rights Commissioner hearings are not as formal as Labour Court hearings; everyone basically sits round a table and makes their submission. In my (relatively limited) experience the RC is well used to having people in front of him/her that may never have had to deal with this sort of hearing before and so will make sure you understand the proceedings and keep things (reasonably) relaxed. Have all your documents and paperwork to hand - coloured stickers to mark each item are a good idea that way you can find things easily if asked without shuffling stuff around.

They have a website also; [broken link removed]

Thanks Kildrought

As was stated, the Rights Commisioner will try to mediate , but with this case , you will be going to Labour Court (probably)


You sound like you have a strong case, your Union will state this in Court, and Employer will state theirs.


There are three people on panel, they will make a ruling and you will find out in 2 - 3 weeks.

They can be ambigious to allow both sides to try to negotiate, but by sounds of this , there is little middle ground.

I won ! Thanks for support

It was in front of the Rights Commissioner, apparently its unprecedented to get a decision on the day but he really could not see a defense - he recommended I be paid the advertised salary from commencement date and that was that.
Just hope they do pay up now. SIPTU took the case, Impact didnt bother taking up the issue at all, thereby losing 16 new members