Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

are furloughed people the new benefit scroungers?

379 replies

ghostmous3 · 22/05/2020 02:28

According to some posts that are doing the rounds on shitebook they are

Before lockdown people moaned about the 'feckless workshy' now the vitriol is aimed at the 'furloughed sitting on thier bums on beaches spreading germs, how dare they when weve got to work. We're paying for you're furlough'

I'm feeling bloody sensitive tonight. I didn't ask to be furloughed, I'm more than likely getting made redundant at the end of july and I dont go to beaches!

OP posts:
Graciebobcat · 22/05/2020 22:32

If you are furloughed why should you be judged for anything you do? You aren't working so do what you fucking like.

hamsterchump · 22/05/2020 22:32

The lockdown might cause a depression but the furlough is the only thing the gives us half a chance of avoiding that. What is most likely to cause a depression is an idiotic government deciding on austerity 2.0 and public fear and lack of confidence in spending.

NoHardSell · 22/05/2020 22:33

I would imagine that because I understand human nature. The English in particular. They vote repeatedly and fairly consistently for parties that screw over the poor and the disabled, vote against tax rises to pay for better healthcare, and are generally self interested. Don't be thinking a few weeks of the five minute clap is bringing about some kind of seismic change.
Nobody will be supporting me on six months salary equivalent. We all know that. The furlough started out as a way of keeping mass redundancies til after lockdown was over (keeps the population calmer) but we seem stuck.in some kind of weird loop around ever ending lockdown/furlough. I honestly think we are now in the grips of a kind of mass.hysteria.

Nanalisa60 · 22/05/2020 22:38

No, I hate it when people are made to feel ashamed for something that is out of there control.

This situation that we have found ourself in has bought out the best in some people and the worst in others.

QuentinWinters · 22/05/2020 22:38

Omg. I'm not sure who or why but I'm getting fed up of furlough bashing

  1. if you work in e.g. a hairdresser, your job will still be needed after lock down. It is more costly to state and employers to have to make people redundant, pay universal credit to those people, then pay hiring costs after lock down than pay furlough
  2. Furlough is NOT a holiday. Lots of people want to work and are desperately worried about their livelihoods.
  3. if furloughed people lost their jobs, there is no employment for them at the moment. They would end up on benefits and also it would cause housing debt/negative equity/massive economic depression.

Furlough benefits us all at the moment. Who gets an advantage of painting furloughed people as benefit scroungers on steroids? It's not the UK, that's for sure. Lets all pull together in this

hamsterchump · 22/05/2020 22:41

Now you're lamenting that no one has any sympathy for you but you have no sympathy for the furloughed, do you understand they are people just like you? Can you not see the irony here? We shouldn't have a race to the bottom, we all need more empathy not less.

NoHardSell · 22/05/2020 22:48

I don't need empathy or sympathy. I'm telling you that I won't get any, not asking for it. It's annoying that I know I am going to be working into the ground by September while other people are having a nice time in the sun. But that's not their personal fault. It is however, in my opinion, a shit policy, as is this extended lockdown, and with every passing week I despair more and more about how utterly useless our government is.

hamsterchump · 22/05/2020 22:58

@NoHardSell You clearly do want sympathy, or why bring up your sad circumstances unless just to distract from your lack of argument? You sound very bitter, you obviously think those furloughed should just go on UC and tighten their belts so presumably you should be happy to do the same without moaning. Don't know why you've got to drag the rest of us down to your level, some of us aren't ashamed of having empathy for other people. Do you understand that if we have the lockdown (which as I said is not my choice) we must have the furlough to stand any chance of keeping the economy stable?

RitzSpy · 22/05/2020 23:11

@NoHardSell What do you think the Gov should do?

NoHardSell · 22/05/2020 23:14

I don't agree with extended lockdown and I don't agree with extended furlough. If UC is good enough for people 3 months ago and in 3 months time, it is also good enough now.

Or it isn't, and we change it properly.

If I want sympathy I'll be starting my own boohoo sad thread about how nasty people are mean because they are working while I sit in my garden and we both get a full wage. It's like a weird version of communism has suddenly been dropped on us, and we're all supposed to be happy about it.

NoHardSell · 22/05/2020 23:21

Oh god people are always asking what I think the government should do
Late Jan I thought we should be buying ventilators and ppe, dusting off the pandemic handbook
In feb I thought we should be quarantining all returnees from italy and france along with extensive track and trace
In march I thought we should go for early lockdown, maybe around the 7th, absolute latest the 14th
What's the bloody point asking what I think we should do?'it's a shitshow from start to finish. But as you ask, start getting a lot more honest and a lot tougher with people, open everything up with a few exceptions eg no mass sports events, no nightclubs. Open schools fully. Get everyone back to work. Do waves of local minor lockdowns as and when numbers rise. Get the bloody app sorted by getting the same one everyone else is going to use. Stop twatting around with furlough and stop it for everyone except the industries we refuse to let open, stop introducing quarantine two months too late and making us look even more stupid, oh the list goes on ...

Helmlover1 · 22/05/2020 23:35

I feel heartily sorry for the furloughed people who desperately want to work or whose jobs are at risk of redundancy.

HOWEVER

Let’s not pretend that there isn’t another ‘group’ of furloughed who are absolutely loving this and are treating it as a holiday. I know people who are constantly posting pics of themselves on social media drinking in their gardens with the ‘loving lockdown!’ captions, others stating how much they are dreading going back to work and one woman even bragged about how rich she feels being furloughed on full pay as she’s not going out anywhere! How exactly do you expect people to feel who are working all the hours under the sun, doing multiple people’s workloads for effectively 20% of their pay, towards these people?

I’m not saying all furloughed people are lazy scroungers but the attitudes of some of them are certainly not helping matters.

Sparklesocks · 23/05/2020 00:21

Don’t understand this attitude that furloughed people are meant to sit quietly in a dark room doing nothing until they’re back at work, unless it’s 40+ hours a week volunteering.
Yes people are probably are enjoying it, wouldn’t anyone be?

Helmlover1 · 23/05/2020 00:53

Sparkle- maybe so, but does that really warrant all of the bragging and distasteful posts on social media at a time when their colleagues are stressed to bits and working harder than ever. You can’t blame people for getting a bit frustrated.

blueshoes · 23/05/2020 00:55

I understand that furlough is not a choice for many but as we come out of lockdown, the furlough limit should gradually be reduced from the current £2,500 to the universal credit limit. This will make it financially neutral compared to being made redundant and still keeping jobs on life support whilst encouraging the furloughed workshy to get back into work and reducing the future tax burden on key workers and non-furloughed who had to work harder for less through the pandemic.

DeeCeeCherry · 23/05/2020 02:10

Let’s not pretend that there isn’t another ‘group’ of furloughed who are absolutely loving this and are treating it as a holiday

Someone at work had radio on 'Greatest Hits' station (I think that's what is called -70s & 80s music) on Friday. Presenter was getting people to phone in & request their favourite song. Loads were phoning in saying they were furloughed, chilling in garden having a drink enjoying the weather etc. Around 1pm-ish.

I'm still working and if I were them there'd likely be days Id do similar. The problem is in making it obvious, it gets people's backs up. Personally I think it's fine I mean they're not working so what else should they be doing, exactly?

But given the nation of grumblers mood of this country I knew furloughed people would get it in the neck sooner rather than later. So yes in some ways they are deemed 'the new benefits scroungers' I suppose

echt · 23/05/2020 02:55

There's always a new arse to kick. Hmm

What on earth do people imagine the furloughed ones should do? They didn't ask for this. Many won't have a job soon. Let them get on with it.

I say this as a teacher who has been at work since lockdown, my UK comrades staffing schools on rota for keyworkers, and still our job gets slagged off as raking it in/doing fuck all.

What chance do the furloughed stand in this mean-spirited, squinny-eyed culture?

Waxonwaxoff0 · 23/05/2020 05:40

@blueshoes

Not many people will be getting £2500. The majority of furloughed workers are in low paid professions - the bar staff, hairdressers, retail staff. I'm on minimum wage myself and getting 80% so it's taken it to less than minimum wage. No one is working for less than me right now.

JustAnotherPoster00 · 23/05/2020 06:35

Not many people will be getting £2500. The majority of furloughed workers are in low paid professions - the bar staff, hairdressers, retail staff. I'm on minimum wage myself and getting 80% so it's taken it to less than minimum wage. No one is working for less than me right now.

Thats why this will be a successful narrative change, you cant shift public opinion unless people feel that others are getting more/something than they are getting, its why the striver/scrounger narrative always included the absolute outliers with complex needs to make people think that everyone on benefits were cashing in, which wasnt even true before the 2012 welfare reform bill

Original poster
ghostmous3 · 23/05/2020 14:17

You definitely have to agree to be furloughed

No you dont. I was pulled into the office and told I was being furloughed along with a couple of hundred. No where was I asked, I was told there was no choice as the work simply wasnt there to sustain us.

OP posts:
ITonyah · 23/05/2020 14:31

Employees don't have to agree to be furloughed. The employer has the final say.

BlackberryCane · 23/05/2020 14:39

They do, but since in a lot of cases it was furlough or no job, it's debatable how much meaningful choice was involved.

NoWordForFluffy · 23/05/2020 14:48

You might need to agree a contract variation to allow it, but you don't have to agree to be actually furloughed.

Justanotherscumbag · 23/05/2020 15:19

You might need to agree a contract variation to allow it, but you don't have to agree to be actually furloughed.

Maybe this is what happened with me then, because I was under the impression I had agreed to furlough.
We had to respond to an email stating if we agreed to be furloughed, as they needed our consent to claim it. There were other variations in the email from our usual contract, however at that point it was agree to furlough or you'd be out of a job straight away.

NoWordForFluffy · 23/05/2020 15:21

... however at that point it was agree to furlough or you'd be out of a job straight away.

Well, exactly. What are the options? Refuse and be made redundant as that's the only other option, or agree and be furloughed. It's not a hard choice given those two options. (Then hope that the latter doesn't then lead to redundancy later.)