Furlough, Redundancy or Dismissal

[Guest]

My employer is choosing not to furlough certain part-time permanent staff into the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. However, this is a hospitality business so they have been unable to provide work for these employees since the business closed on the instruction of the government on March 23rd.

All if these employees are eligible to receive 80% income from the scheme of the employer would enrol and claim for them.

These employees are not guaranteed hours, but have received regular hours up to the closure and were on current rota’s. They would have expected income this month. They are not able to refuse hours provided and I believe are classed as employees and not workers.

I cannot understand the employers position, but having decided to do this, are they obliged to make these staff redundant or dismiss them in some other way? The employer believes these employees can simply be ignored and will leave of their own accord if they want to find other employment, or have no choice but to remain employed without income until such time as we are able to offer work again.

Thank you.

[ULA]

Do you know what types of contracts these staff are on? Are they on permanent part-time contracts or zero hours contracts?

Regardless of what type of contract they are eligible for your employer to put then on the CJRS so long as they were on the payroll as at 28 February 2020. However, as far as I an aware, the one issue for employers is that they will have to pay staff the 80% salary and then claim it back and all employers will be able to do this.

If your employer cannot retain all or some of their workforce, even with the help of the CJRS, then they need to undertake a redundancy process.

[Mr J Stevens]

Hello ULA,

Thank you for your response.

All staff are permanent part-time. They are Employees, not Workers. All were on the rota during the week the government announced the close down and subsequent weeks. Some have been employed for over twelve months. All have been employed for over three months.

All are 100% eligible to be furloughed under the scheme.

This is purely a choice the employer is making not to furlough these staff because it reduces the administrative burden or they do not feel these staff deserve an income. They have not provided an explanation. They are choosing not to give access to the help the government wishes to provide for certain staff who have been selected without any criteria.

[ULA]

If they are permanent part-time staff and the business is no longer operational as a result of COVID19, then if your employer wished to retain staff until some form of "normality" returns and the business reopens and if he cannot afford to pay them then they should be put on furlough. If your employer does not want retain them for when the business reopens then he needs to go through a redundancy process, although anyone with less than 2 years service will not be entitled to statutory redundancy payments.