[syndicatedjelly]

This is not true, even in the US, the land of "right-to-work". An employee and employer enter an agreement that the employee shall deliver the work described, and the employer shall provide a compensation defined in the contract.

That's why salaries don't change at random, week-to-week. It's also why when one accepts a raise or promotion, both parties sign a new contract. The same goes in the opposite direction - if an employer wants to cut salaries, both parties have to sign new contracts.

The contract has very few stipulations, and a lot of it benefits the employer, but still, this:

> Employees generally don't have contracts.

is false.

[Aurornis]

> That's why salaries don't change at random, week-to-week.

The reason employers don't change salaries "at random" is because that's ridiculous and employees would leave.

Companies can and do change people's salaries. There are news stories of companies giving people 10% pay cuts across the board lately. Do you really think they're going around and kindly asking everyone permission to reduce their salary?

> It's also why when one accepts a raise or promotion, both parties sign a new contract.

I have never once signed any papers when receiving a raise, promotion, or title change.

[syndicatedjelly]

> The reason employers don't change salaries "at random" is because that's ridiculous and employees would leave.

Companies have done more ridiculous things. You don't think some bright HR intern hasn't thought about pro-rating people's salaries based on some arbitrary periodic "performance" criteria? They can't, the pay rate is in the contract.

> Do you really think they're going around and kindly asking everyone permission to reduce their salary?

Yes. The deal is, accept 10% less and be happy you're not fired, or accept 100% less and you no longer work here. Some people will do the latter. That's how at-will employment works. Is it fair? That's a separate discussion.

> I have never once signed any papers when receiving a raise, promotion, or title change.

I don't know how you managed to get employed as a (full-time, salaried, with benefits) employee in the US without signing a contract, but that's a huge "code smell". You should listen to everyone replying about how the vast majority of people who are legally employed sign contracts with their employer.

FYI you're getting "downvoted" (this isn't Reddit) because your original comment was wildly inaccurate. Now that you've edited it, it sounds a bit more correct. Write with more precision next time so you don't get grayed out.

Since you're spending so much time defending this bizarre assertion, I have to ask - are you an attorney?

[ralferoo]

In the UK, at least, an employee has to consent to any material change to the terms in the contract.

Obviously, you don't have to sign anything to receive a payrise or bonus because the employee isn't going to turn it down (1), but you will be informed in writing of any payrise or bonus and if the employer reneges on it, you have proof they promised it to you. (1: of course, there are extremely rare situations where you might not want a payrise, e.g. if it pushes you out of a beneficial means tested situation, but these are generally rare because minimum wage usually means a full time job pays slightly more than benefits.)

OTOH, if you are given a promotion there will definitely be a new contract to sign - it's not left to chance by the company, because without doing so they have no way of proving that you have agreed to do more work in exchange for the new title and payrise.

Similarly, if the company wants to reduce your pay or change something about the terms of the contract which you don't want, e.g. forcing you to change from remote to in-office, you can refuse the change. If they attempt to fire you after that, it's fairly easy to bring a constructive dismissal case - you show the tribunal your contract showing your requirements, they will see you length of service, and the fact you were terminated just after refusing to accept a change to your contract. Of course, it's usually in both parties' interest to negotiate an exit package in such a situation or for employer to back down if that actually works out cheaper.

I have had friends that have worked in companies during the financial crisis ~2008 that gave employees the choice to collectively agree to a 10% pay-cut for a year with no redundancies and then reverting to the original pay, or somebody would have to be let go assuming nobody wanted to volunteer to leave (in this case they didn't). It's interesting, because they still had to get everybody to sign the new contract with the agreed terms, and while it would have been hard for someone to stand up to the peer pressure somebody could in theory have agreed publicly in the meeting but later refused to sign.

Another weird edge case is that if your contract requires you to work in a specific location, unless your contract also specifically has a clause that allows the company to require you to work elsewhere, it's possible to refuse to accept gardening leave and require the company to provide an office for you to work in while you serve your notice period. This weird legal rule is because spending time at home may require you to use lights and heating that you wouldn't need if you were in the office, and so it's financially disadvantaging you to take gardening leave. Of course, by that point most people are only too keen to get away from the job as quickly as they can, that they willing accept gardening leave.