Your rights: Job description has been altered

By CHRIS PATTERSON

Q. Our HR department has altered the job description of a position that affects at least 12 employees. We have been asked to sign the revision, indicating we agree with it.

The alteration dropped the entry requirement from a tertiary qualification to 80 credits in NCEA Level 2 or equivalent, including English.

We are concerned that this may affect our pay scales and lower the skill and knowledge requirement of the position.

One employee who undertakes some statistical work has discovered that this has not been included in his revised job description, although he will still be doing it.

Is this legal and what can we do to reverse it? Do we have to sign?

A. Your HR department cannot unilaterally alter your job description. You should have been consulted in relation to any desired changes.

The HR department would be entitled to alter your job description only if the alteration amounted to a clarification of your role. However, it appears that this change goes beyond that if it has the potential to affect pay scales.

You may be entitled to raise a concern that your employment has been unjustifiably affected to your disadvantage, if indeed the decision to alter your job description did result in some form of disadvantage to you.

You might also be entitled to seek a compliance order requiring the HR department to revoke its decision, but you would need to follow the procedure for resolving employment relationship problems contained in your employment agreement. You would be entitled to refer your concerns to the Employment Relations Authority, following the procedure for resolving employment relationship problems.

I would recommend that you do not sign the revised job description until an actual agreement to make the change has been reached.

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Q. I am 18 and have been working in a medium-sized engineering workshop for eight months.

The facilities which we work in are definitely not up to OSH standards, there is an illegal sandblasting facility and other hazards that I fear could one day lead to a fatal accident.

Secondly, I am daily subjected to verbal harassment and assault by the owner of the business. He screams at me, yells obscenities, puts me down in front of co-workers and truck drivers. He makes sick jokes about me and makes me feel humiliated. I have begun to lose self-confidence and feel depressed.

When I fractured my leg at work I had to continue to work on the injury, which made it worse. He called me a "faggot" and a "sissy" and told me to harden up.

I need my job and used to enjoy it, however over the past six months I have been subjected to this constant harassment, which borders on physical assault. I live in a constant fear of losing my job.

I feel there is no way someone should be able to get away with this, but I have no one to talk to at work about this problem, and feel intimidated by my boss.

A. You need to raise your concerns with your employer, but I suggest you first get professional help to do this. It would be best to put your concerns in writing so there is no a dispute over who said what. You need to make it clear that they are serious and need to be satisfactorily addressed.

For help you could contact your union, an employment law professional or the Department of Labour's mediation service. I would hope that your employer would address each of your concerns to avoid having the Department of Labour's OSH inspectors involved because he failed to address your health and safety concerns.

It is important that you comply with the Protected Disclosures Act if you decide to contact OSH.

I would also hope that your boss would change his behaviour and conduct towards you to avoid a referral to the Employment Relations Authority. It would be highly unlikely for the authority to condone such behaviour and conduct.

Employment relationships are build on mutual trust and confidence. Your employer is not entitled to behave in a way that damages or destroys your trust and confidence that he will treat you as a fair and reasonable employer would.

Fair and reasonable employers do not intimate, verbally harass or deliberately, without justification, embarrass their staff. Apart from being far from best management practice such conduct could led to a claim that you were unjustifiably, or constructively, dismissed because you were forced to resign.

You should express your concerns to him as soon as possible.

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