Employer Enforcing Quarantine?

[Dominicgoings]

UK based ( not Scotland) and healthcare setting.

Just had an email to say that anyone who goes abroad on ‘non essential travel’ will have quarantine for 14days on unpaid or annual leave and undergo Covid testing before returning to work.

Reasonable or not?

Reasonable if they go to a country not on the list. Unreasonable if they do go to a country on the list

Totally unreasonable if it's to one of the allowed countries.

Sorry should add only if the country gone to has the quarantine restriction applied by the government, so if on the safe list doesn't apply.

Ridiculous. You're as likely to catch the virus in the UK as anywhere on the permitted list. I'd think its illegal too.

It seems ludicrous, otherwise a lot of workforce are going to be off for up to a month?

The testing aspect seems to have been overlooked. Does a negative test negate the 14 days quarantine?

I completely see where the employer is coming from, but legally I just don’t think you can justify this. If the government isn’t enforcing a quarantine then an employer has no right to do so when it will have a negative impact on the employee (their pay or annual leave allocation). In the same way that I totally understand healthcare settings wanting their employees to avoid the pub but at the same time I agree they have no right to ask them to do so. It’s horribly tricky.

Unreasonable - the government says it's ok to go to several countries without quarrantining.

It would be interesting to see what ACAS say.

Perfectly reasonable IMO. To answer PP question- all employees not just health care.
Personally I don’t really trust the government and just because they say it’s safe doesn’t actually mean it definitely is.

Is there an option to work from home?

Reasonable. The government wanting to support the airline industry isn’t a reason for staff to put others at risk.

I think you need a legal person to answer this formally to be honest. On the one hand it sounds like a sensible precaution (until you think about how the risk in the uk is much higher than most other places in Europe at the moment, and I'm not sure that a plane is much different from say the London Underground). But on the other, they are going against government advice and trying to dictate what you do in your spare time, and causing people who have a holiday pre booked to lose lots of money (either by cancelling their holiday and losing their money or losing wages after).

It doesn't matter what people on here think, I think its what's legally allowed

@coffeechocolatecoffee

Employees cannot be penalised for following government advice - if they are travelling to a county which is exempt from FCO advice not to travel because a travel corridor has been formed and no quarantine restrictions apply on return, the employer cannot enforce them and not pay the employee.

However, if travelling against FCO advice then absolutely is fair to enforce unpaid/annual leave for quarantine

Exactly!

I work in a food production plant and we have this rule in place. Most of the staff have been very compliant but we've had to send people home to self isolate and one person was terminated for knowingly coming into work when a member of his household had tested positive for Covid.
If Covid got into the factory then it would have to close down. It just not worth the risk.

germany has recently clarified their employment laws wrt this.
if it is necessary to enforce quarantine & testing for infection control, then this needs to be taken into account by the employee wrt their holiday arrangement.

Reasonable.

totally unreasonable in my opinion, I'm NHS and am hoping to go check on our house jn Spain at the beginning of October, it will have been empty a year by then. I don't understand how they can legally do this as surely the legislation needs to be in place?
I will be going on holiday after the last few months....

Completely unreasonable. They should contact their trade union if they are in one.

I think it sounds reasonable, if you have to quarantine after non essential travel, then that would mean you would stay home?

if you are not at work (and not allowed to go to work because you are in quarantine, because you went on non essential travel) then why should you get paid?

I think its you cant work, but its your fault you cant work? its not your company stopping you from working?

i think?

I work in retail and we have a similar policy. If the travel was booked before the 14 day quarantine was introduced and we travel to a country where quarantine is required then the additional time off is paid, if the travel was booked after the quarantine was introduced then we have to include it as part of our annual leave or take it as unpaid which I think is reasonable.

Obviously unreasonable.

Assuming the person is travelling to one of the countries which is on the "green" lists and doesn't require standard quarantine when returning to the UK, the employer can't start making up their own rules and also refuse to pay them!

Unreasonable why should you have an extra two weeks unpaid or lose your holiday just get a test when it comes back clear go back to work

I think it's reasonable. They're taking a precaution to minimise the risk.

think most of the posters are confused - the employer isn't enforcing quarantine.

They are imposing their own quarantine roolz which are above and beyond the official quarantine policy set by the government, and furthermore saying that this will be unpaid.

Very reasonable. The government are stupid encouraging anyone to holiday abroad.

But does that give employers the right to make up their own roolz and deduct two weeks' wages from employees?

Course it doesn't.