Furlough and enforced holiday

Jeremy535897

It is a difficult area. On the one hand, there is the purist legal point in the article quoted very helpfully by calcotti, that suggests (amongst other things) that nobody can have a "proper" holiday in the pandemic, because you are still so restricted in what you can do. At the other extreme are the employers who have woken up to the fact that if they force all their employees to take all their holiday entitlement whilst on furlough, their holidays cost at most 20% of the employee's wage plus associated costs, and when business picks up, their workforce will be fully available.

As I said earlier, in practice it may be sensible to follow the guidance in https://www.gov.uk/guidance/holiday-entitlement-and-pay-during-coronavirus-covid-19 , which covers a lot of the questions, including the government's view that workers can be on holiday during furlough, and their employer can require them to take it:

"Furloughed workers

Workers on furlough can take holiday without disrupting their furlough. The notice requirements for their employer requiring a worker to take leave or to refuse a request for leave continue to apply. Employers should engage with their workforce and explain reasons for wanting them to take leave before requiring them to do so.

If an employer requires a worker to take holiday while on furlough, the employer should consider whether any restrictions the worker is under, such as the need to socially distance or self-isolate, would prevent the worker from resting, relaxing and enjoying leisure time, which is the fundamental purpose of holiday."

The legal view quoted by calcotti suggests that this advice is wrong, but until someone takes a case to the courts, an employer will rely on it and there is not much the employee can do. The guidance does seem to envisage rational and sensible conversations between employer and employee as equal parties, which we know is often not the case, as in this situation for JonBaker.

EDIT: On looking at the legal point concerning whether you can really have a holiday during a pandemic, it seemed to me that the authors of the article were linking this to being on furlough. I don't see that whether the employee is on furlough affects the answer to that question.

JonBaker

It sounds like your employer is abusing the furlough scheme by placing you on furlough only when you want to take holiday, as this means that they only have to contribute 20% to your holiday pay whilst the taxpayer picks up the bill for the remaining 80%. 

That's exactly what I thought. So i loose 40% pay for talking entitled holiday that I have more than earned. I'm doing the work of 4 people during lockdown, physical manual labour in car bodyshop in 30+c with facemasks on and that's the thanks we get. Also if we complain about the heat we get threatened to be put back on furlough