Salary adjustment based on working experience

In this organization (Sarawak Operation), contract staff are employed to assist in our operations. They are aplenty making up of about 12% of total population. Their actual employers are the manpower service companies (or contractors) with whom the organization establishes the service contracts. Some contract staff such as foreign expatriates are hired directly with the organization, because of the specific skills they possess.

Finance department is one of the depts most dependant on contract staff. This is about one of their account clerks. The original work order stated that we needed an account clerk with 5-year working experience. The contractor managed to find a person meeting the spec, initially. Somehow mid-contract she resigned and they could not find equivalent replacement quickly. Since line dept (Finance) required the body immediately, they compromised the criteria and took in the whoever replacement clerk being offered by the contractor at the original work order value.
What we did is reduce her salary by reducing the work order value awarded to her company, upon the beginning of the new fixed-term contract.
The line manager has met her to alert her of the new contract to be offered. She took it positively.