So...My salary for my previous month was 26 days late and they finally paid it today.

Once I got it I noticed it was missing 20%. Asked the CEO and he sent me an email saying I am on shortened work supported by the government and since last month I will be only getting 80% of my salary.

This is obviously not right because he never told me in advance that this was going to happen and now basically two full salaries will take a hit, not counting all the future salaries.

If I lived in CH, I could fight the situation as if he fired me I would get 80% unemployment, but as I'm a cross-border employee, I have nothing to fall back on as the Italian unemployment system is ridiculous.

I believe the company is on its last leg unless they get an investment (which is possible). So I don't know if trying to get money out of them would help me in the long term and if they would even have the money to pay.

I would be fine with the pay cut for future months, but the retroactive cut is what's pissing me off. I don't want to lose my job, because there is nothing else out there right now. Do I have to just suck it up or does anyone have any ideas what I should do?

You have to sign a form to agree to Kurzarbeit.... and you get the 80% if you work 80% or less (not if you work 100%).

"Can the employer order short-time work unilaterally?
No, the employees must agree to short-time work or SWC.

NEW: Employees no longer have to give their consent on the form "Consent for short-time working" (German: "Zustimmung zur Kurzarbeit") at the time of submitting the advance notification. It is now sufficient to have the employer's confirmation on the advance notification form that the employees agree to short-time work. However, the individual employee's declarations of consent must be submitted to the unemployment insurance fund with the settlement, at the latest. If employees do not agree, the employer must in principle continue to offer unrestricted work and, in the worst case, risk ordinary termination for economic reasons"

https://home.kpmg/ch/en/blogs/home/p...pensation.html

Not if it's due to COVID, only for a normal work reduction. I've done both in the last year. If it's non COVID, they need to wait for the standard contractual period to elapse before reducing your salary, you must agree, and it this point o to the un-emplyment office to ask for the top-up and do the normal un-employment stuff. COVID, nothing for you to do nor consent to.

True, sort of. You get 80% of the difference, so we were on 50% and we got 80% of the other 50%, so 90%.

Tom

It’s changed then, both my employers asked me to sign and consent in March.

My point was, if he worked 100% he should get 100% pay

So, it seems you must at least be informed/ given advance notice.

You should be paid for all hours worked before you were given notice.
Afterwards you're only obliged to work 80% and be paid max 80%
You can reject it but the company has the option to terminate your contract with the prescribed amount of notice, paying you 100% until the contract ends.


"80% of the other half of 50% is 90%" I think means the 20% reduction is aportioned according to the proportion you normally work. i.e. 50% workers go down to 40% (or do you mean 45%?? anyway it's not relevant here)


?

Yes it was changed end of october.
He can refuse the 80 % with the risk of beeing terminated due to economic reasons.

It may become moot if the company fails. I would be looking for an other job.

No.

We were 100%, canton paid for us to got to 50%, and paid 80% of the other 50%, so worked 50%, but got paid 90% (50% normal, 40% from the canton) due to COVID.

Tom

Thanks for all the replies.

I was working 100% until now, but as I got my salary, it was accompanied with an email saying that I need to take 20% of the workdays off from now on + the month of October and November, so basically next month I should take 4 + 4 + 3 days off before the end of the year.

As the company never asked for my consent for this, do you think I could try to claim it back later if they terminate me?

Not if it's due to Covid.

But don't they need to give him advance notice? I would have thought so.

I would think so too.

Also, if I understood correctly, as they are asking me to work 80%, they should be paying me full for the 80% and the government pays 80% of the remaining 20% so I should be getting about 96% of my salary?

I'm so confused with all this, and it sucks my company is not explaining anything to us and I`m afraid to question anything risking losing my job, which obviously kind of sucks, but I need to pay bills.

Also, they still owe me money for an invoice from last year. Basically, they deducted about 45% and said they are withholding it because it needs to be paid to Germany, where I was being taxed at the time. The problem is in the salary slip it has no mention of the "withholding" of german taxes.

I'm just so tired of all this, but feel so unprotected by the system and restricted with opportunities due to Covid that I just have to deal with it.