NSW Employer Withdrew Their Presented Offer - Employee Rights?

[John Price]

Our firm is being acquired by another firm. All partners in my firm were offered an attractive offer above the buying firms current employment offers to move to the new firm. This was already below our current employers package we were on. A presentation where the CEO and Franchisor (my future employer) were present to explain to us in early May 2017.

All partners, our Directors and CEO and their CEO and Franchisor all made the presentation to us. I was then instructed by one of our Directors to email him to inform him that I wished to take up the offer, which I did. Takeover is to be finalised May 31.

I received a call May 30 from the Franchisor in the afternoon informing me that the original offer is off the table as the Franchisor was not willing to pay this higher figure. So my salary will be altered to benefit the Franchisor and my bonus structure will be 20% below my current package. The offer presented was also emailed to each partner explaining it so that the Franchisor and CEO of the new company understood what was offered and that they were accepting of this arrangement.

I now have less than 24 hours to accept this new lower offer. What are my employee rights? What can I enforce on my new employer in the next 24 hours for them to uphold their original offer to me and others in the group?

 

[Lance]

Hi John,

At the risk of you not having a response before the 24hr review time, I would just like to say if you decide to fight it you could be looking at a long and expensive arbitration process. The other option is to take the offer and look elsewhere. Its better to look for a job while you have a job.

Good luck with your decision.

 

[Rod]

24 hrs to respond to an offer is not reasonable and you could argue you accepted the first offer and therefore have a contract at that level. Without much more detail is is hard to know who would win that argument.

But as Lance says, it is better to take the current offer and look around for other work.

 

[John Price]

Yes. I agree. They have now given me two more extra working days.