Furlough Question For Casual Staff Working Between Two Sites

smevs

Hi all
My son is currently studying away at University. Before leaving to study he worked as a lifeguard at a local leisure centre, and managed to get a lifeguarding job working for the same company at a leisure centre close to university. As such, he still works at both sites and transfers between the 2 sites when either at university or at home.

The company have furloughed him which is great but, as he only worked at one of the sites during February this year, they are only offering to pay him furlough on the last 12 months income he earned at that location, rather than the total for the company for both sites. 

The total income for the company on his P60 is about 8 times the value of the income earned at the site near university (he works a lot of hours when home from Uni during the summer, Easter etc) so he stands to be out of pocket by around £200/month.

As I understand it the furlough rules state that if your pay varies and you have been employed for a full year, employers will claim for the highest of either the amount your earned in the same month last year, or an average of your monthly earnings for the last year.

Before this all started, he was hoping to work a lot of hours during the Easter break to supplement his student loan and had already booked lots of shifts.

Is the employer right to only offer furlough on the income earned at one location, rather than the total for the whole company for the year ?
This seems a rather harsh stance to me on casual workers who often rely on extra income they can earn out of term time.

Jeremy535897

It sounds as if they are treating him as a fixed rate employee, but if his wage varies every month, your calculation is the one they should use.

smevs

So, do you think that they should be basing his furlough calculations based on the total earned for the company in the last 12 months, rather than the individual leisure centre ?

What do you think the best approach would be to presenting an argument on this basis to the company payroll people (as the individual leisure centre managers etc have all been furloughed too) ?

Many thanks

Jeremy535897

I think the two leisure centres point is a red herring, unless they have separate payrolls. The problem is that at the critical date for fixed rate employees, the last pay period before 19 March 2020, he only did a small proportion of the work he did in the past, because he only worked at one leisure centre. Look at the examples in this document, and base your arguments on the fact that he is a variable pay employee, and therefore should be looking at the higher of average pay in 2019/20, or the comparable pay for the same calendar month a year ago:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/work-out-80-of-your-employees-wages-to-claim-through-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme