I turned down a pay rise. Have I done the right thing?

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Tamaya
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04 Aug 2025, 2:06 pm

The last time we got a pay rise everything changed - a very strict but useless supervisor got summoned and had changed all our rotas and made us work Sundays and bank holidays, and we all knew it was because of this pay rise. And there's some more change coming, as there's talk of us being forced to work until later, which wouldn't be convenient for me, and also we're getting a pay rise again, so it looks like the same thing will happen again - they're going to use the pay rise as an excuse to put us under more pressure and change our rotas again.
I'm not falling for that again, so I spoke with the union rep and asked if I can refuse a pay rise, and he said I can.

I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing though. If it was like £5 extra an hour then I'd take it, but it'd probably just be about 60p extra an hour, which won't make me any richer in the long run because my taxes would just go up, and I'll just be getting more stress at work as a side effect.

So what do you think? Is it stupid of me to turn down a pay rise? It's just I don't really allow myself to be blackmailed by money. All I want is to pay my bills, etc, and just have a simple life; go to work, enjoy my job, come home, know that the rent is paid and there's food on the table. I don't want stress and drama at work, which is what happened last time I got a pay rise.

Do you see what I mean?


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blitzkrieg
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04 Aug 2025, 3:12 pm

I think I see what you mean.

Hopefully you won't have to undertake any extra responsibilites if you refuse the pay rise.

The worst outcome might be if the company tries to force you to work later, despite you not having taken any extra money from them in terms of your hourly pay.


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Tamaya
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04 Aug 2025, 3:26 pm

I'm just hoping I'm doing the right thing.

I can't work any later than I'm working now, and they keep on chopping and changing the rotas. They seem to give us pay rises every time they want us to do different shifts that we might not like doing. They seem to think "oh, give them a pay rise, then they can't really refuse." But if I don't accept a pay rise then maybe I can refuse to do the later shift.

This is why employment can be so hard for people with anxiety.


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VioletKnight
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05 Aug 2025, 8:25 pm

I'm going to say that that was probably a bad move. Unfortunately, if those changes you suspect are coming really are coming then they'll happen whether you accept the pay raise or not. I'll admit, I don't really know what it's like in England, but here at least from what I've been told a pay raise isn't a bribe or blackmail. Somebody in my family is currently a manager at a store. Apparently alot of jobs (here, anyway) raise pay by like 15 or 25 cents or some tiny amount like that at regular intervals, and businesses aren't supposed to schedule employees outside of the hours of availability that they provided. Promotions to higher positions are more like bribes to get you to do more work and take on more responsibility, and those tend to come with significantly higher pay raises.