A friend of mine both work for the same company. We recently have a new manager from Utah. There have been many loss prevention concerns with him and other on going issues regarding him as a "manager." Recently he was away at conferences and when he returned back he was different.

My friend is a Leader at the store. That is her title. She gets paid an hourly and commission. She has never had any verbal repadamants or write ups, or any documentation on needing improvement as a leader. Well out of the blue he put her on a conference call with our district manager and there they told her they were going to decrease her pay. He said that her sales performance aren't up to standard.

So my question is, can a company decrease your pay just because? Because when she got the job, they offered her a starting pay, and now 1 year and 4 months later are deducting the pay.

Also the question is if they can decrease her pay for no reason, can she get it made up from the unemployment office?

Yes, demotions and the corresponding reductions in pay may be made at any time as long as 1) there is not an enforceable employment contract prohibiting it; 2) the employee is notified in advance of working hours at the reduced rate and; 3) the action is not taken solely due to a protected characteristic of the worker, such as race, gender, age, religion, etc. Previous "write-ups" or other conversations regarding her performance are not required by law.

Generally speaking, even partial UI benefits would be payable only if her hours were drastically reduced, not because the wage rate was reduced while working the same hours.

She might want to be looking for other work with another employer. In this economy, sales of bigger ticket items (the ones on which commissions are commonly paid) are decreasing dramatically. I certainly wouldn't want to be in the position of counting on sales commissions for a substantial portion of my income; of course, I'm a rotten salesperson (grin).