Legal Question in Employment Law in Washington
Pay raise then they revoked it
My husband was given a raise along with 4 others. They all signed paperwork which was submitted to process the raises, they were also signed by the manager. Someone who did not get a raise found out about it, and whined. The admin. manager then revoked all the raises. They have not been presented with any paperwork to sign reducing the pay amount. Can they do this? Would they have to sign paperwork to reduce their pay, because they sign paperwork to increase the pay? Looking for a little guidence and see if we can press this issue.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Pay raise then they revoked it
Generally employment in Washington is at will, meaning the employer can hire or fire or change the terms of employment "at will". Of course some things are illegal, e.g., discrimination, retaliation, whistleblowing retaliation, contract violations, and government employers' due process. My take on this is that probably the company can revoke a raise, as long as it is not for an illegal reason. However, I see an argument that the work performed between the effective date of the raise and the revocation would be paid at the raise rate. The employer shouldn't be able to pay less than agreed upon for work that was already done. It kind of depends on how much of a stink is worth raising over the short period of the raise.
One concern I always have about answering short questions like this is that there may be facts I don't know about which can change the accuracy of my answer. If you have more questions, please give me a call, and be sure to ask more than one lawyer the same question to try to get the full range of options and ideas.
Good luck!
Steve Teller
(206) 324-8969
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