AIBU to expect it to be unpaid...

[Teddy275]

Co-worker spends the summer holidays in Spain at her parents apartment. Obviously the only cost to her is flights which she booked (outbound) in June. Normally she would go for 3/4 weeks out of the 6 but, due to a special birthday, she is there the full 6 weeks this time. She flew out on a single ticket as wasn't sure when to book her return but has now arranged (and booked) to fly back the day before we are due to start back at work in September. On the day she flew out (just hours before she boarded) they announced change in guidelines re:self quarantine upon return.
She has been very smug about this on social media, saying how lovely it's going to be to not have to come straight back to work and get extended time off etc. Thing is, if the self quarantine rules are still in place, it's going to make a lot of peoples job a lot more difficult without her around for two weeks and she is going to miss a lot of information and training that would be detrimental to our team and will need to be caught up again using somebody else's time.
I'll be honest and say that I haven't really any awareness of what the situation is regarding changing flights or refunds in this scenario but am I (and other co-workers) being unreasonable to feel that this could have been avoided, she booked the return date knowing full well what would happen, there's plenty of time to now amend the return date and that if she does require time off it should be unpaid? Her excuse was that the return date she chose was a lot cheaper.
Our manager is looking into it all (she hasn't officially been informed of this yet, just saw the same social media as we did) and once co-worker got wind of this she's been kicking up a right storm about it, threatening unions and all sorts 🙄. I'd perhaps have more sympathy if it was all booked pre-pandemic, and, who knows where things will be in a months time, but still....

Your colleague sounds selfish. DH is a teacher. We had a 3 week holiday booked for the last 3 weeks of the school holiday. We’ve amended it to just 1 week so that he’s back home for 2 weeks before the school restart. Even if there isn’t an official need to quarantine he still doesn’t want to increase the risk to his colleagues and students.

I disagree that the government should pick up the tab if people have to quarantine as a result of taking an unnecessary holiday. A holiday is not a basic necessity and f ING unreasonable that so many have gone in the middle of a pandemic knowing this would undoubtedly impact on the rest of society. In effect negating the entire lockdown for lager, sun, sea and sex!

@curiousierandcouriser

I work at an overseas private school. My employer has warned us all that if we choose to travel during this time for vacation, we will need to make allowances for quarantine in our plans. Basically, we should plan to be back 14 days before we start.

Any missed work will be unpaid and anything longer than a week or so (exceptional circumstances will be considered) will be grounds for termination. I've already had colleagues who have been terminated and others who are in danger of being terminated as they can't get back.

Honestly, I understand the desire for vacation (our holidays are term time only) but I don't have much sympathy for people choosing to travel abroad. Everyone knows there's a pandemic and rules change very quickly. She needs to come back early or accept the consequences (unpaid leave).

I'm not a teacher but also outside the UAE. In my country you need permission to return and you can't apply for that until you're outside the country. There are a lot of people who decided to risk travelling and are now stuck. Some of those had a family emergency but there are a lot of people with jobs that can't be done remotely that decided to go because they felt they needed the holiday. I understand that, but I'm also tied to school holidays and we've decided we can't risk travelling overseas unless for an emergency. A large group of those who have travelled are teachers so it's going to be interesting to see what happens when/if they can't get back in. I don't know whether it's a group who just don't care if they lose their jobs or if they are being naive about the risks.

Like heck should her extra time off be paid by the government, if she booked the return journey after the government announcement on quarantine then she did it fully knowing the consequences on her leave and work dates.

The school I work at notified staff in June that if enforced quarantine happened which affected their return to work in September that it would be unpaid but this wouldn't apply to holidays booked pre March time.

She booked her return intentionally knowing that she would have to quarantine on return so SIBU! I’m assuming she is a teacher. As a Chair of Governors, I would be refusing paid leave for this, supporting the SLT and would be letting her know, so she knows the options.

Our HT would insist she book the return to accommodate 14 days quarantine or not pay her. Our Trust made that very clear before we broke up.

In her case she's got time to make arrangements to allow for return and quarantine unlike folk who have been caught on the hop by the withdrawal of the air bridge with short notice.

I am a teacher and have been quite vociferous in defending the profession throughout this pandemic so far.

But this is absolutely fucking ridiculous, and teachers (people!) like this make me furious for giving us all a bad name. Sadly, there are shirkers and piss-takers in any line of work.
First off, she's insane to put ANY of this on Social Media, and she's frankly taking the piss to deliberately book her return flight so close to the term starting.
I sincerely hope she doesn't get paid, and I'm not sure I would be going out of my way to help her get up to speed on her eventual return to work, either. I'd copy her in to all emails etc about any new systems and let her do her own research beyond that.

shes a cf she can change her dates said so herself-shes put her foot in it posting on fb abot it all

doubt she'd have a leg to stand on

Totally agree, unpaid, or in collegue's case as she's away for a long time so can come back earlier and still have a good break. Our holiday abroad was cancelled earlier this year. We've since booked a few days away in August, we chose England as, unless there's a local lockdown here or there, we can travel, knowing what the restrictions clearly are, get back quicker if there's a problem and, yes, no quarantine.

If the government are going to pay employees during their holiday quarantine (or force employers to) surely this is an incentive for the less scrupilous to book a holiday to get their brucey bonus 2 weeks extra paid leave?

In what possible universe is this fair or good for the economy?

I can’t imagine she’ll end up getting paid for this. My school has been really clear that if you chose to take a holiday and end up being quarantined as a result, this must be taken as unpaid leave (I think there has been a small hint at leniency for things that were booked well before lockdown was predicted) for teaching staff, and support staff it would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis depending on if they can genuinely work as well from home as being in the office.

Schools are anticipating being under-staffed in September and having stretch the cover system because a certain number of staff are likely to be required to stay at home because of the track and trace programme, there’s absolutely no extra slack in the system for this sort of thing.

@OpenWheelRace

If the government are going to pay employees during their holiday quarantine (or force employers to) surely this is an incentive for the less scrupilous to book a holiday to get their brucey bonus 2 weeks extra paid leave?

In what possible universe is this fair or good for the economy?

If you don't get paid wages while in quarantine, no one is going to stick to quarantine, whether it's because they went on holiday or are contacted by track & trace, and then Coronavirus cases will rise, and either a lot of people will die or we'll end up in lockdown again. Both of which would be far far worse for the economy.

So kids will suffer even more because of complete selfishness like this. I can guarantee that the same sort will be bleating about how unsafe their workplace is but are perfectly happy to get on a packed aircraft to another country during a pandemic.

@viques

Sounds as though you have deep seated teacher hating issues. Perhaps you could look into getting counselling.

Not at all...but as I said I have an insight into this and see how pathetic and weak e management is in some schools with HT frightened of "the union "

Paying quarantine in the current situation is misuse of public money and teachers are no more entitled to that than anyone else. Some teachers do think they have that right and that's what I dislike

As I said earlier...I'm impressed at how academy's have gripped it and made clear it will be unpaid

As I keep saying normal LA policies also stipulate that teachers should only be paid during quarantine if they can work at home ( not likely if all children are back at school) and had booked before COVID. Otherwise it is unpaid leave.