Furlough company topping up if you earn over £2500 gross

davver99

Furlough question 

company topping up employee furlough payment if the 80% exceeds  over £2500 gross .

Is this legal to basicly ignore people who earn less ? Can they just choose to top up higher earners?
Thanks 

sharpe106

Are they topping them up to 100% or are they topping them up so they got 80% as well.

davver99

so the way I think of it  ,if 80% of there salary a month is 3000 they will top that up and pay the difference from 2500 that is capped by government scheme. 

sharpe106

 If they are only topping them up to 80% then I can't see how you have an argument for it being unfair, if they were topping them up to 100% then you could. But even then unless they were discriminating against you under equality or disability law still not a lot you could do about it.

Brynsam

davver99 said:

so the way I think of it  ,if 80% of there salary a month is 3000 they will top that up and pay the difference from 2500 that is capped by government scheme. 

So the people concerned are getting 80% of their normal pay, as are those earning lower salaries. What's your beef with that - everyone is being treated equally, albeit the company is having to fork out to ensure parity for all levels of pay.

TBagpuss

The short answer is yes, it's legal, and yes,  they can chose to just top up higher earners. 
It would be unlawful if they were deciding who to top up based on protected characteristics such as age, race or gender.
Topping up so everyone gets the same proportion of their normal pay seems like a reasonably fair and simple  way to approach it. And of course there may be good business reasons to try to keep the better paid employees relatively happy - they may well be much harder to replace