Negotiating your salary in a new job is one thing, but what happens when your existing employer pleads ‘hard times' and wants to cut your salary? Recent reports tell the dismal tale of workers' pay and benefits being slashed in the name of the recession, and rather than risk losing their jobs altogether, more and more employees are standing for it.

According to a recent poll conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, 15 expect to do the same within the next half year. We are not talking here about reducing working hours to effect a cost saving, but about workers doing the same job, for the same number of hours and receiving less money. In addition to this, 78 had reduced paid holidays.

All of this begs the question, ‘Is this legal?' While basic discrimination laws do, of course, apply wholesale, and ensure that you cannot be laid off or otherwise disadvantaged due to your gender, age, religion, race or national origin, labor laws in general vary from state to state, which makes a blanket response to the question impossible. The reality though is that most employees in the United States are neither protected by union agreements which prohibit the changing of work rules, nor by employment agreements.

With the way things are in the world today, however, perhaps the question ‘Is it legal?' is one of the least difficult to answer. Any decent legal advisor could set you straight on that one. Maybe a couple of harder ones to deal with are ‘Is it fair?' and ‘If not, what are you going to do about it?' While none of us wants to feel ripped off or treated unjustly, with the specter of unemployment looming over us, do we really want to run the risk of ‘making waves', or do we simply have to swallow any feelings of injustice?

Recessions do not only bring about tough times financially. Sadly, they set men against men and raise moral issues that most of us would rather not have to consider. If it is a choice between forsaking our rights and putting bread on the table, or standing up for what we believe to be rightfully ours and ending up in the unemployment queue, where is the choice in that? Should we just ‘put up and shut up' or should we be fighting back?