Q: If you're an hourly employee and a new company takes over can they cut your hourly pay rate without any warning?

A: Generally speaking, the hourly pay rate of hourly employees is a matter of mutual negotiation and agreement between the employer and the employee. Commonly, there is no fixed term of employment and either party can terminate or attempt to renegotiate the relationship at will. That being said, neither party can unilaterally without the other party's agreement arbitrarily change the terms of employment retroactively. So your wife's employer cannot--after she has worked hours under an agreement for a particular hourly pay rate--simply decide to pay her less for hours she has already worked.

Her employer can attempt to renegotiate her hourly pay rate for future work by stating it will only pay her at a different lower hourly pay rate in the future. She can accept that lower pay rate and continue working. Or she can reject that lower pay rate and stop working.

Given the shortage of RNs nationwide and the likely additional cost to recruit, hire, and train a replacement, your wife might say that she is rejecting the lower proposed hourly pay rate, demand that she be compensated at the previously agreed hourly rate for all hours she has worked to date, and state that she will agree to continue working for the employer in the future only if the employer agrees to compensate her at a HIGHER pay rate for future work and ask for written confirmation of this new agreed pay rate before she performs any further services for that employer.

If her employer refuses, she can file a wage & hour dispute with the TWC for all hours she has worked in the past. https://www.twc.texas.gov/programs/wage-and-hour/texas-payday-law

And she can resign and apply for a new job with a new employer who pays better.,