Hi there, I have been informed by my employer that they want all of the Engineers where I work to accept a 20% pay cut. They informed us verbally of this 2 working days before they wanted it to start and gave us written notification 2 working days after it started. The reason they are giving us the 20% pay cut is because there is not enough work, therefore I am argueing that if there is not enough work for 5 days a week we should simply be cut to 4 day weeks and this would achieve the 20% pay cut but keep everybody happy. I would like to know if I refuse the pay cut and insist on a 4 day week whether my employer can just terminate my contract. I have been with them for 13 months now. Any help is appreciated.

This might be a bit too technical for you guys to answer but I would value your opinions. My employer is in financial difficulty and wants me to take a 20% pay cut, now me and another chap at work are fed up of working for other people and are considering starting our own company up. However as I was perusing my contract of employment I came upon the conditions below, which if I read them correctly mean I essentially cant do anything for 12 months, whilst I have no intention of "poaching" work from my current employer it would be impossible to start my own company without ever competing for work against them. The way that I read it I couldnt even get a new job with another company without breaking these conditions as no doubt they would be competing for the same work! My question would be is this not over the top and unenforceable and surely they are anticompetative? Am I meant to not work for 12 months? During the 12 months following termination of employment, however that may arise, employees must not in any capacity whatsoever, whether directly or indirectly: Solicit the custom of any client of the company in connection with the provision to such a client of services competing with those provided to that client by the company at any time in the period of 12 months before the effective date of such termination; or Provide services to or otherwise deal with any client of the company in respect of business competing with that transacted with that client by the company at any time in the period of 12 months before the effective date of such termination; or Induce or seek to induce any other employee to leave the company’s employment, engage or employ into any partnership or association with any other employee or procure or assist in procuring the engagement or employment of any other employee whether or not such employee’s leaving would constitute a breach of his contract of employment.

Thanks for the quick reply Buzby, when I spoke to the guy at the DVLA he said that when the refund was issued the tax disc was reported as "lost", so I will certainly make the point about the fraud being perpetrated by the original seller on the DVLA by misrepresenting the refund (and not enclosing the tax disc) in my letter when I send it off. I wonder if I could bring a case against the previous keeper, I believe the law states that the car must be "as described", therefore if the tax disc was fake surely that is the same as describing the car as having tax when it did not? It was certainly part of the conditions of sale that it came with tax. Or am I just clutching at straws?

Hello all, My girlfriend bought a car from a private individual; it was sold as being with 12 months MOT and 3 months tax. Now she didn’t receive a reminder from the DVLA and totally forgot to re-tax the car when the 3 months was up, so in hindsight it wasn’t surprising when the police pulled her over and issued her with a £60 fixed penalty ticket for driving without tax. They also informed her that they would report this to the DVLA and she would have to pay them for the period that the car was untaxed for…fair enough but this is what happened next. She received a letter from the DVLA saying she had to pay £160, I rang the DVLA for her to ask why it was this much and was told that it is based on 1.5 of what the tax would have been plus a £30 fine. However the DVLA had worked this out from the time when my girlfriend originally bought the car and became the registered keeper back in 27-07-07, I asked why they had worked it out from that date when the tax hadn’t run out until 31-10-07 and they said that the previous owner had a tax disc refund issued on that vehicle on the 27-04-07 and therefore the vehicle hadn’t been taxed since my girlfriend bought it. To cut a long story short the tax disc that came with the car appears to be fake or otherwise dodgy although it does appear totally genuine, correct license plate number etc, the DVLA want her to send them the tax disc so they can take a look at it, if it is a genuine tax disc then they will lower the amount my girlfriend has to pay based on the end date of 31-10-07, however if it turns out that the tax disc is dodgy they will still want the full £160 from my girlfriend. I asked why they would still expect the full amount from my girlfriend arguing that the tax disc in the car was valid until 31-10-07 so any amount of the fine due before that date should go to the originally registered keeper of the vehicle, after all if the tax disc is a fake it is him that had put it in the car. The DVLA even refuse to send the tax disc back once they have examined it as they say they would need to destroy it so we wont even have that as evidence, although we will photocopy it before posting. What I would like to know is if anybody has any advice as to what my girlfriend should do now, is there no way of getting the original keeper to pay the fine up to the point when the fake tax disc ran out? The DVLA didn’t even say they would investigate him for selling cars with fake tax discs. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.