are furloughed people the new benefit scroungers?

[ghostmous3]

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!

@NoHardSell I work in travel sales. Not retail, corporate. There is no work for me to do. No corporate clients are signing contracts right now. So I'm furloughed. I'm a couple of years off retirement amd have been in travel since I was 16.

You think people should be looking for work rather than being furloughed? How would that work? Millions of people looking for work when a large % of companies can't operate or have no business?

I don't want to be furloughed, none of my colleagues want to be furloughed. We would all go back to work tomorrow if we could. We have a twice weekly catch up meeting and people's moods have gone to upbeat and grateful for some pay to low, worried and fed up.

“I agree. But people in the U.K. have this kind of attitude lately. It's what happens after 10 plus years of the Tories being in power.“

Can’t we have one thread without politics being mentioned. It’s getting quite boring now.

YANBU op. I would come off Facebook it’s full of hate.

I'm glad it was brought in for people. I appreciate that some will still fall through the cracks for any help and nothing is ever perfect , but the majority of people will receive money and this is a good thing.
Anyone saying otherwise are clearly not worth engaging with.

“I agree. But people in the U.K. have this kind of attitude lately. It's what happens after 10 plus years of the Tories being in power.“ Can’t we have one thread without politics being mentioned. It’s getting quite boring now

Life is political. How can it not be?

And while I'm here, yes it is about the Tories, though many MNers are too young to have experienced its genesis in the Thatcher years,

I am furloughed along with 50% of the family owned company I work for.
15 years of hard graft from the owners sleeping on a sofa bed for 2 years as the bedroom was their warehouse/ office .

They now employ 40 people.

If my being furloughed helps them keep their business then so be it . Nothing would make me happier than to be going to work as it would mean that their business ( and my job ) are safe .

As for tax payers paying my wages I have paid tax for 48 years and my husband has paid the higher rate for 26 years and has continued to work during lockdown . Nobody in our 2 extended families have ever claimed any benefits and never will .

For me, the main problem with furlough is that people are still accruing holidays. That is a massive kick to everybody working (who has to spend their holiday allowance now just to stay afloat). That is just stupid as people might come back in septembee well restrd with loads of holidays, whereas people working will be exhausted with no holidays left.
I know I (and the management) will expect colleagues furlough now to puck up all the extra work from when they are back. But knowing my colleagues, they know that and will do it happily. I would loose all respect for somebody coming back and not expecting to go above and beyond.

One of our colleagues is ‘furloughed’. I say ‘furloughed’ because her role is still totally needed but from the Tuesday morning in March after the lockdown was announced, she has simply not come to work.
She is being paid full wages as normal.
No underlying health issues etc, nothing.
She doesn’t feel safe.
Two of us are now doing the work of three because she is best buddies with the Chairman.
She had a lovely day out in Hastings on Wednesday, according to Fakebook.
I totally get this is different to the normal furlough situation but it has certainly caused resentment.

Mh dh was furloughed. He’s now back at work. Why should he as a net tax provider pay even more tax? Ie he / we pay out more than we get.... And what about those on minimum wage, should they pay more as well?

I’d be very pissed off if this happens. I am disabled and decided not to make a pip claim because we can afford not to- albeit we dip into savings every month. I pay for all my treatments and I cost a lot. Much of this would be available to me on healthcare if we lived abroad but not on the pickled bones of the nhs. I will also have to pay for much needed surgery unless As I can not wait, increasingly bed bound, on the circa 2 year waiting list; this, before Covid would have been a few months, 6 at most. I have already paid 2k privately to get tests and a diagnosis btw.

It’s a very slippery slope to start picking out a subsection of society for special treatment.

Nobody in our 2 extended families have ever claimed any benefits and never will .

Well, let’s hope life never deals any of you a shit hand then. What a patronising, smug and wanky thing to post.

Yes I am currently claiming incapacity benefit. I would much rather be working and able to pay my monthly outgoings without accruing more debt each month but that’s where I am at the moment. Struggling with ill health and falling into debt as a result of minimal support despite having paid hundreds of thousands (probably millions) into the system over the years via my own taxes, VAT, and tax and NI of people I employed directly and indirectly through suppliers etc.

We would be financially screwed if my husband were furloughed. I don't resent anyone who's company has furloughed them.

BUT I have heard of too many cases where the scheme is being abused, I have heard about cases where -

• In family run businesses where they have furloughed family members who are still working,

• Where companies who haven't needed to have furloughed staff just to make an extra profit.

• Self employed people have furloughed themselves for a tax payer funded holiday.

• Oh and there's multi millionaire Steve Coogan who wants us to pay for his housekeeper and gardener.

So abuse is huge and that is who I resent. The taxpayer is now laying the salary of one in three private sector workers, which is absolutely terrifying and clearly was not necessary in a lot of these cases.

I wish that there had been caveats to the scheme, I wish it had only applied to certain industries and I think unless the lockdown had forced them to close (eg pubs and retail etc) the company should have to prove a loss in earnings before being eligible to use it.

I feel very sympathetic to people who are furloughed tbh - a lot them don't know whether their job will still be there afterwards. Anyone being jealous is very, very short-sighted. Hope all goes well for you OP and you either keep your job or find a new one fairly easily.

I have come across a couple of employers who seem to be taking the mick with the furlough system (e.g. people furloughed but doing work from home). But employees aren't really getting a choice.

Absolutely not!!

There’s a world of difference between people choosing not to work and people being told that their company is being forced to close.

None of them asked for it. The vast majority of furloughed staff would much prefer this didn’t happen. Many of them will be panicking they won’t have a job to go back too.

If they want to rise taxes to pay it back then they should just bring in a tax just for those who were furloughed

For a moment, I had some sympathy with this, then I realised that if they weren't furloughed and were made redundant instead, we'd be paying benefits etc through our taxes anyway, plus the social costs of unemployment.

We have a family member who was actually better off on furlough. He's on a fairly low wage and his commuting costs were more than his net loss in wages. Lucky bastard.

On a personal level, I resent it a bit because wfh is doing me in, but that's nothing to do with the principle of it. We just don't have the room for us both to have a decent space to work from, and I'm on the sodding sofa with a laptop and nowhere to put anything.

It seems like society is becoming very divided. People are struggling to see past their own situations and looking for someone else to blame for their struggles

I think that's quite a normal reaction to a perceived threat in a lot of ways. Scapegoating is a way of dealing with what people can't just accept.

There was a Daily Mail article last week as you probably know- headline ‘Bosses battle furloughed workers who don’t want to return to work and would rather put their feet up with 80% pay funded by taxpayers’. That’s the sort of manipulative language that fuels the social media nonsense and the uninformed attitudes - it’s setting a huge group of people up to be scapegoats when things get really tough economically, and it takes scrutiny off the government by encouraging ordinary people to turn against each other.
You’re like the rest of us, in a worrying situation beyond your control. Nobody has to prove that they’d rather be at work when they have no choice in the matter anyway. All the best.

I predicted that this would happen several weeks ago. We have become a divided society - and not just in the last few months. Governments and the media have encouraged an attitude "victim blaming" -

• it's the benefit scroungers who drain society
• it's the people who claim they are disabled who drain society
• it's public sector workers who drain society

There's now a new group on the block. I don't agree with it, but I wonder how many of those furloughed and now also being labelled scroungers were as vehement in the defence of other people who weren't scrounging either.

Get used to it.

In the 80s when Thatcher laid off entire industries and then called them workshy scroungers when they were left on the dole with no hope of work.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3914063-Furlough-madness?pg=1

This thread has some if those attitudes on. Madness indeed. Those criticising the scheme don’t seem to understand how it works or what it’s for.

I think op there are plenty of furloughed people worried about their jobs and who would rather work.

The disapproving comments are not about those people. They are about the ones who do not wish to go back and are trying desperately to get it extended, even though they and theirs are not shielded etc,

And there are many of them too.

How bizarre to refer to furloughed people as lazy or "work shy". By definition these are people who until very recently were in work and been stopped, not through their own choice!
So easy to see what is happening here. Government starts sowing seeds of dissent, spreading resentment against people on fuflough, ready to hang them out to dry in a couple of months. I would not be surprised if there are paid posters and bots on this site, posting these "oh my sister is taking it on furlough while I work 11 million hours a week" posts. This is the usual government propoganda tactics. Don't feel sorry for these lazy people! They deserve all they are about to get!

If they want to rise taxes to pay it back then they should just bring in a tax just for those who were furloughed.

What about the significant percentage of them who get made redundant? Can’t tax them then, huh?

If you’ve a secure job at the end of all this, you need to count yourself lucky and quit wingeing about the tax you’re paying. Plenty of people will not be able to pay their bills because of jobs losses.