I know there are quite a few other sales people on here as well as legal experts, so any assistance is appreciated.

Unfortunately, my relationship with my current employer has soured. I am in enterprise software sales.
Right now, they owe me $50K in earned commissions from last year and severance of $50K (3 months base salary) if I am terminated.

However, they are trying to get me to sign a commission plan for 2022 (suspicious that they didn't even have a comp plan this year until a few weeks ago that they now want me to sign right away). It states "On voluntary or involuntary termination of Employee’s employment, commissions will only be paid if the Employee is employed by the Company at the time the commissions are earned and paid. Any amounts not earned and paid to the Employee after the Employee leaves the Company will be forfeited."

I am understandably hesitant to sign this.

My understanding (though each state is different), is that if the company fires you, they have to pay you your outstanding commissions, but if you quit, then they do not. FYI, the compensation is "EARNED" when the contract is signed but "PAID OUT" when the company receives the money, which is why I'm still owed $50k through April of next year because the contracts are signed but haven't been invoiced yet. This seems obvious to me, because if companies could just fire you instead of paying commission then they could save hundreds of thousands of dollars every time a rep closes a big deal by just firing them immediately.

I spoke with another person who worked at my company in the same position, he told me that instead of firing him, they offered him a demotion at a lower salary, which he accepted because he was desperate, then a few months later he left on his own for a better job, thus leaving lots of commissions on the table and his severance.

I am nervous they will try the same tactic with me.

1. If a company tries to demote you instead of fire you, can you refuse to accept the demotion? In that case, does the law think you were fired or quit (meaning do you get paid the commissions/severance if you refuse to accept your demotion)?

2. The offer letter states that my base salary is x, but "The CEO shall review the base salary and may adjust from time to time." This company has shown itself to be extremely dishonest, what is to stop the CEO from saying, "fine, if you won't quit then I will update your salary to $12 an hour," hence forcing me to quit because they know that I can't live off of that, so that they don't have to terminate me.

Thank you so much. Please BM me if you have further clarifying questions.