Furlough

Delta69

My partner and I both work for the same company, although different departments. 

Both had no work for 3 weeks, I returned to work, partner was unable to as my partners mother usually looks after our daughter. My partners mother refused to look after our daughter, so therefor had no child care available and never been able to afford child care. Our work places were converted into a hospital, so basically different to usual.

I knew I would have been expected to do a long run at work, in fact had to do 14 days straight, 12-13 hours per day. 

Can they hold that against my partner for a reason not to furlough. She hasn't had any communications from work. I sent her an email that they wanted to redeploy us to the hospital. We had to select what we wanted to do at the new hospital. Partner selected no to the roles, then sent an email to the managent of which she never received a reply back. Neither of us are from a hospital back ground, although main reason was child care and not wanting to break the lock down law. 

Thank you. 

gary83

Delta69 said:

although main reason was child care and not wanting to break the lock down law. 

Firstly there’s no lock down law that prevents anyone going to work, particularly in a hospital, we won’t be seeing all the Drs, nurses and supermarket staff being arrested for going to work once this is all over.

Just to make sure I understand your post, your workplace been turned into a temporary nightingale style hospital?  you were both off work for 3 weeks, what had happened up to that point? were you furloughed? Receiving pay? Or on unpaid leave?

your current employer offered you both a choice of roles, you accepted something entirely different to your usual job, but your wife said no to all choices?

Delta69

I obviously gave up my chance of being furloughed. We had no communications from work for the first 3 weeks, neither of us had been furloughed. Yes one of them, can't say where.. Neither of us were receiving pay in that time, partner still hadn't any pay in over 5 weeks.

Yes, she said no to all roles due to the fact of no option for child care with her mother refusing to look after our daughter. 

gary83

firstly and I’m not trying to sound patronising - well done on stepping up, it’s probably not much fun suddenly finding yourself working in a hospital environment in the middle of all this, stay safe.

if the company has work to do its extremely unlikely your partner would be furloughed (particularly if she hasn’t even heard from the company for 5 weeks) what sort of contract were you on before? Were you on a set number of hours a week? Have you looked into Universal Credit? Depending on the ages of the kids, you could both have become key workers, is there any schools/childcare providers offering spaces to dual key worker families?

Delta69

Both on zero. Hours we actually used to work were variable. We had done an aplication for universal credit within the 3 weeks of no work, but once I returned to work, I informed UC  of my changes, because I earn over the threshold, I doubt my partner will get anything. Never received anything from UC. 

My partner actually wanted to work, just stumped with child care and literally no one else to help us.
Our daughter is 23 months old.