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?

" I think it's very reasonable for healthcare and hospitality to impose additional standards to protect their clients, given how badly things could go wrong otherwise."

Yes, but it shouldn't be for OP to pay for it.

Cross-posted Sock.

Well if you bring it back the whole business is required to shut for 2 weeks paying all staff and potential loss of revenue
Perhaps losing customers too.
Oh and if u had it you could indirectly cause someone to die.

Interested to know how this would work

I’m in education. I had this e mail 5 weeks ago.
We had to declare if we had already booked a holiday in the last week of August. IF we HADN’T already booked, but then booked one and needed to quarantine on return, we would not be paid, (pending latest gov guidelines).
I think it’s fair as we have been pre warned.

I think if this becomes standard then the staff retention/recruitment issues within health care settings are going to get a lot worse.

My employer has said we are to think carefully about non-essential travel.

If any of us go we will be required to take laptops etc with us so we can work remotely if there’s another lockdown. In return we won’t be allowed into the office for 2 weeks but can wfh.

@prh47bridge

So why is it okay for companies to penalise people who are following the law?

The OP told us this is a healthcare setting. Her employer has a responsibility to those receiving care. If an employee goes abroad, is allowed to return to work immediately and infects someone they could be sued for negligence. Saying that what the employee did was legal would not be a defence.

The employer cannot force employees to take unpaid leave but forcing them to stay away from work and taking it out of their annual leave entitlement is very definitely allowed.

But you're mixing up the law and morality. They're not the same thing.

Penalising someone for going abroad on their totally legal summer holiday is wrong. If you want them to quarantine afterwards, then fine, but you can't penalise them for that (eg. you can't make them take the time unpaid or use more annual leave - what if someone is using the last of their paid leave to go abroad, for example?)

If a company want people to quarantine on their return, then they need to pay those employees in full for the quarantine period. You can't penalise people for following the law like that. If the employer decides it's not safe for them to return to work, they need to suck up the costs involved in paying them for the quarantine period.

I think thats utter crap. Why would i be at any more risk if i spend a week in Spain compared to me having a week in London? What if i take my week annual leave and tell no-one where ive been, how would my employer know if ive been in the UK or abroad?.
Im of the opinion its my holiday and as such im entitled to do with it what i please

@Lulaloo

I’m in education. I had this e mail 5 weeks ago. We had to declare if we had already booked a holiday in the last week of August. IF we HADN’T already booked, but then booked one and needed to quarantine on return, we would not be paid, (pending latest gov guidelines). I think it’s fair as we have been pre warned.

The government rules on quarantine have changed since then though. There is now no quarantine required from certain countries so you are now entitled to go to France/Spain/Italy etc at any time during the holidays and can return to school on the usual start date.

Completly unreasonable, you don't work and live in a vacuum, you could catch and bring the virus into work from any setting, in the UK. So telling people they need to lose two weeks pay because they went on holiday abroad is rediculous. People will go, they won't say where they are going. They could go to a holiday home in Devon and bring it back. Do they want anyone who takes any holiday to take an extra two weeks unpaid at home after.

So tell them you're just staying in the UK. Duh.

Perfectly reasonable. A holiday is a luxury not a necessity.

@Rhine

Perfectly reasonable. A holiday is a luxury not a necessity.

That's totally irrelevant!

The law states you can travel to a whole list of countries without the need to quarantine on your return. Employers don't just get to go above the law and decide to deduct two weeks of pay (or two weeks holiday) from you when you get back.

If they want you to quarantine, they can pay you to do so.

Reasonable, i think it should be put in place everywhere..

Clearly our snaky government are passing the buck over to individual employers, rather then wanting to take responsibility for pissing people of themselves!

I think it's reasonable but should also depend on the job role. Remember the government have only relaxed travel restrictions to save the airline and travel industry not necessarily because they think it is a good idea. Their decisions are guided by the economy and opinion polls. Employers have been working hard to make their workplaces safe for staff with many reluctant to come back to work because of virus concerns, yet some of these people are perfectly happy to go abroad on holiday

Will be interesting to see the Employment Tribunal cases when employers unlawfully refuse to pay employees correctly.

@Parker231

Will be interesting to see the Employment Tribunal cases when employers unlawfully refuse to pay employees correctly.

I can't wait! (Employment Lawyer)

The employees concerned are speaking to union reps themselves. I’m struggling to find ANY govt guidance for individual employers. The organisation is sometimes guilty of issuing ‘rules’ that aren’t always based on anything concrete.
Thanks for all your thoughts-it seems as if there is a slightly heavier leaning towards this being reasonable. Am glad I’m staycationing chez nous to be honest!!

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

This.

While the employer can probably insist on the quarantine/test if they want to, I can't see how they won't have to pay the employee for the quarantine period. They can't force them to use up leave or take it unpaid if they are following government guidelines.

it seems as if there is a slightly heavier leaning towards this being reasonable

What a group of randomers says on MN isn't any indication of reasonable. These are the same people who were telling people off for buying easter eggs and screeching that they were murdering people for having a wee sit down on a park bench to eat a bag of crisps.

Legally, it's not reasonable at all and that's really all that matters.

If you are a healthcare worker your employer should arrange a test for you immediately on your return and allow you to return if a negative test comes back. In this part of the country this is readily available and the tests are coming back in our care service within 24 hours. If you are going on to an airbridge country I cannot see there would be any increased risk beyond a staycation here, so on that basis I think it is unreasonable. Are you in a union/ they should be able to help.

quarantine only reasonable if returning from one of the designated quarantine countries, I'm voting yadnbu.

Also I bet the people saying that it's entirely reasonable would have a different opinion if they were being told they were losing 2 weeks' wages for doing something entirely within the law.

Baffled by all those saying it's reasonable.

Legally, your employer can't require you to take unpaid leave when there is no legal requirement to quarantine (maybe not even if there was)

Morally, infection rates in the uk are higher than most holiday desinations so you could actually be more likely to catch it on a UK holiday depending how you travel and what you do when you get there.

I think those quarantine measures against countries with lower infection rates than us (ie, the whole of europe) were just a gimmick to make people think we are all safe here in England, but dirty foreigners in the EU have covid. Looks like it worked!