Q. I bought a new business 2 months ago with the intention of integrating it into my existing business. Employment regulations say that I can't change the terms of employment of the staff of the new business. However, they are paid more than my existing employees this is unfair. Can I do harmonize their pay to ensure fairness?
A. Well, it rather depends upon what you propose to do. If you were to increase your existing employee's wages to match those of the new employees then everyone's a winner (apart from your business of course!). However, if you propose to reduce the new employees pay to the same level as the existing workers, then the answer is likely to be no.
This is because employment regulations provide that changes to transferred employees' contractual terms are generally void if the reason for the change is connected to the transfer (which it clearly is). Whilst there is an exception to this rule where the change is due to an economic, technical or organizational reasons entailing changes in the workforce, that doesn't apply here.
Even so, it may still be possible for you to achieve what you want by dismissing the transferred employees with notice and re-employing them on new terms. However, it's very important you get this right and therefore I therefore suggest that you contact our employment experts to arrange an appointment ASAP.
