Furlough Questions Part-time

ClaireO79

My employer wants to furlough my dept on 3 week furlough, 3 weeks working rotation. That means when I'm on my 3 weeks work, I cover my colleagues work whilst they are furloughed and vice versa. I normally work part time but they want me to work fulltime when it's my 3 weeks of work.  Can they do this? Also, my part time hours are not the same every week, I'm contracted to work 20 hours a week. Some weeks I do more, some less how will they calculate my furlough payment, will it be based on my contracted hours?  

sharpe106

Will depend on your contract, but probably not. The furlough will be based on your average salary. But the extra hours you do whilst working for the 3 weeks will cover any loses you get as being on 80% for 3 weeks. So unless you can’t actually do it I would agree for a few weeks, bit of flexibility both way.    

ar1970blue

My employer has decided not to furlough his staff as he said we only work part time and do not qualify.  He is not providing any pay during the lockdown at all.  Am I entitled to any pay seeing as he closed the business and we cannot therefore work and cannot work from home or do I just have to accept this time away from work will be unpaid? 

sharpe106

ar1970blue said:

My employer has decided not to furlough his staff as he said we only work part time and do not qualify.  He is not providing any pay during the lockdown at all.  Am I entitled to any pay seeing as he closed the business and we cannot therefore work and cannot work from home or do I just have to accept this time away from work will be unpaid? 

That would depend on your contract, if you are contracted to hours then yes, if on a zero hour contact then no. 

calcotti

sharpe106 said: That would depend on your contract, if you are contracted to hours then yes, if on a zero hour contact then no.  

Just responding to the comment about zero hours contracts. Zero hour contract employees can be furloughed.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-for-wage-costs-through-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme#employees-you-can-claim-for.

Employees you can claim for
You can only claim for furloughed employees that were on your PAYE payroll on or before 28 February 2020. Employees hired after 28 February 2020 cannot be furloughed and claimed for in accordance with this scheme.
Employees can be on any type of employment contract, including full-time, part-time, agency, flexible or zero-hour contracts. 

Given that there pay is likely to vary the 8-0% amount will be calculated under the rules for those on variable pay. 

Employees whose pay varies
If the employee has been employed for 12 months or more, you can claim the highest of either the:

• same month’s earning from the previous year

• average monthly earnings for the 2019-2020 tax year

If the employee has been employed for less than 12 months, claim for 80% of their average monthly earnings since they started work.
If the employee only started in February 2020, work out a pro-rata for their earnings so far, and claim for 80%.

ar1970blue

Yes I am contracted to hours but I have been informed an employer does not have to use the Job Retention Scheme if they do not want to.  I will just have to accept that I will be unpaid as my employer will not use money from the business to pay our wages either.  I was just wondering if my employer was in the wrong not to cover our wages at all by any means.  

sharpe106

They do not have to use the scheme. But they can’t ignore previous contracts either. If you are contracted to do a set hours then they still need to pay you.