Even though public employers have certain rights to make changes to its employees’ job descriptions they must follow the law and provision of collective wage agreements when making such changes.
Changes of terms of public employees are addressed by law and in the collective wage agreements. When a person is hired there are certain areas of competence and obligations that they needs to fulfil. It is not possible to assume that the job will stay the unchanged and therefore it is normal that a manager or employer might want to make some changes to the job and/or the job description.
In short, an employee must accept some changes to their work but if the changes are significant they must be preceeded in a similar way to a termination. The employee has one month to either accept the changes or to resign. If they refuse to accept the changes the result is a termination of the work contract. If the employee accepts the changes that include lower wages or less rights, the employee keeps the former rights and wages throughout the notice time.
An announcement of changes shall always be in writing and with arguments. The right to make changes of this kind shall also be used in moderation and in such a way that the changes have as little impact on the employee as possible. If the changes lead to reduced salary the employee has the right to be heard and argue against the change before any decisions are made.