Respected Lawyers,
My employer (a private organization) has cut my salary by 50% since the start of lockdown. Last 2 months they have cut my salary by 50% despite I am working from home full time and there’s no compromise in quality of my output. Rather now that there’s no time wastage in commute to office I can work extra every day. Moreover, now since last 2 months I am using my own resources at no cost to the organization. Be it my laptop, residential electricity, home internet connection and so on. Electricity bill should now go up by at least 700 - 800Rs and last two months I had to pay Rs 500 extra to top up my Internet with additional data to work from home!
When asked, the employer said, the management has decided to divert funds towards covid19 relief so salary is cut.
I appreciate that the management has genuine intentions but that does not justify two things
- Touching employee salary when there’s still output from the employee
- Touching employee salary without their consent before diverting it to CSR or whatever you call.
- If management wants CSR, they should first do it from their own profit reserves
The sad part is there’s no clarity when it will return to normalcy. They say this could be for a long time and even if salary is restored in future, whatever will get cut may never be settled or paid later.
Keeping in mind this is a private organization, do I have a valid case if I decide to take it to the court? I know the moment they receive a legal notice from me, they will kick me out of the organization. I will accept tough times ahead. However despite, I want to stand up for my rights and values. Even if they throw me out, I want to recover what they have cut till date.
The reason I want to do it, is that the private organizations must understand that their employees have courage and conviction to knock the doors of the court if they do something like this.
I know in a dispute between a private organization and an individual the organization always wins!
Best regards.
