When is a contract not a contract?

[taximan007]

I'm guessing most people that work for a company are given a written contract ( at least that always used to be the case).

I'm of an age where I was bought up to believe that a written contract once signed by both parties was binding.

To my knowledge the wording in most company contracts for employees is the same, just things like salary, hours worked, notice of leaving, holidays may be different depending on the job or level of seniority.

So my question is how does a company stand having given a contract to an employee it has been signed by all parties and then 5 weeks later the company decide they have made a mistake on ONE particular part of the contract and want to issue an amended one to the employee?

[nirvana]

Notionally the employee needs to agree, sadly with only 5 weeks service the company can act with some impunity if it chooses to and has a lot of options to get this through.

[taximan007]

Notionally the employee needs to agree, sadly with only 5 weeks service the company can act with some impunity if it chooses to and has a lot of options to get this through.

The employee has been with the company a number of years and recently changed jobs hence a new contract, would this make any difference?

[celtic]

Think it might be easier if you can describe the actual situation?

[George2Loose]

Any contract can be altered given a consultation period. Just the way things are