work furlough situation

dave4123 · 30 March 2020 at 9:01PM

hi I work in a tyre fitting garage and the boss has sent half of the staff home and got them to sign a form and they will get 80% of the wages paid to them the other half including me have not been offered this option and told to carry on working (delivering tyres to garages) can he do this! im worried because I have small kids at home and a pregnant wife and I don't want to catch corona and take it home many thanks

gary83 · 30 March 2020 at 9:07PM

yes the boss can make anybody he doesn’t have enough work for furloughed, he could choose to furlough some, none or all. The criteria to be eligible for furlough is;

If you and your employer both agree, your employer might be able to keep you on the payroll if they’re unable to operate or have no work for you to do because of coronavirus (COVID-19). This is known as being ‘on furlough’.

your personal home circumstances are completely irrelevant, it’s a scheme to help business, not a makeshift social security system. If you were trying to look at it positively at least it implies if redundancy’s do happen you won’t be first in line.

dave4123 · 30 March 2020 at 9:13PM

many thanks just didn't seem right to me!

7Phil · 30 March 2020 at 9:15PM

It's totally up to the employer who they still need and don't, which may be based on skills and other aspects such as how they are employed.
If you are close to your colleagues then see if you can negotiate. Maybe someone will be willing to swap positions with you?
Employers are able to do a bit of horse-trading with who is on and who is off.

End of the day - imagine if this goes on for a long time and severely affects your business. If your employer needs to shed staff then those on furlough are at a far greater risk of becoming redundant at the end of the scheme.
I get your point about wanting to be health safe but conversely, at this time I would be holding on to my job security with an iron grip.

gary83 · 30 March 2020 at 9:36PM

I can see where you’re coming from, effectively why should I go out to work everyday for 20% of my wages, when I’d get 80% just sitting home like other people. Worth remembering this scheme is totally unprecedented & was unimaginable a month ago, it was designed to help businesses. Yes some people are winners but there’s a lot of losers, look at the amount of people on here thinking they deserve it for childcare reasons, people Missing out that changed jobs in March, people on commission who’ll take a huge pay cut, people who’s employers won’t operate it the list is pretty endless. At least the government tried to help, it was rushed in, it might change further, either way were all going to be paying it back for years.