Furlough holiday

[MrsQGinglass]

I am furloughed still and work for a large international company. There are only a few off us still furloughed 2 in my office only.

I received an informing me that all holiday from last year that was carried over would have to be used in the October. I know the reason why it is cheaper for them to get part of the government to pay it.
My issue is that those that have not been furloughed are allowed to carry over their holiday for the next 2 years.
I really do not think this is fair as they are treating us differently.
I have contacted HR for clarification but they have not answered my emails.
Is this lawful.
AIBUto think that they are treating us unfairly.

Actually- I wamt to apologise to the OP because I said upthread we were attacking her for her shitty attitude. No, I am attacking the shitty attitude, but not her and I do apologise for making it personal.

I think that this whole situation has been so bad for everyone- and I imagine being furloughed and worried for your job is awful. The whole situation has been dreadful. For me, - well- the situaiton has bonded me and my non-furloughed colleagues much closer together because of how unrelentingly horrid it has been so that HAS been a good thing. On the whole I can say I would rather have been working than furloughed.

But OP- your gripes I do not think are reasonable. But even so, elbow bump to you - it's been rubbish for everyone. And I am sorry for getting snarky.

YABVVVVVU.

My DH hasn't been able to carry any A/L over despite working flat out with very little opportunity to take any holidays.
I've only been allowed to carry over 5.
We've both lost a significant amount of leave between us and we've not had a 6 month paid holiday .....

@AhNowTed

OP you're being ridiculous.

You can't expect to return to work with your full holiday entitlement intact, having been on furlough for 6 months.

Those still working would have used holiday during the period, as you would have done if you were still working.

Your employer can't have people coming off furlough with weeks of holiday entitlement. That is not fair.

NOTE, I am also on furlough and have been since April. My company has processed 20 days incl BH of my entitlement during that time up to the end of October, leaving me 8 days for November and December when I'm hopefully back in work.

Totally reasonable.

My holiday is not from 1st Jan to the 31st Dec, My holiday runs differently.

Op- you are still wrong. You just are.

Sorry.

@Vilanelle

You have just had months off on furlough, why would you expect to carry over holiday after that?

Err because she wouldn't have been able to go on holiday during that time, given she could be called back to work at any given moment.

Absolutely if I went back to work I would be given 24 hours notice.

I also incur holiday while still being employed by my company and still have the same rights as other employees.

To those saying I have sat on my arse for 6 months, do you think I want to?

I’ve never been able to carry more than 5 days over to the following year. Carrying over for two years Just wouldn’t be entertained, you would lose this allowance. I’ve been working FT for 30 years.

9 pages in, 92% saying YABU....

Yes your employer can and its reasonable. My friend was furloughed and had to take 2 weeks recently or lose the days. I worked throughout lockdown and can carry leave over because the business cannot have us all taking leave. You've had all this time off essentially whilst others worked.

@AstiniMartini

Op- you are still wrong. You just are.

Sorry.

Why because I want to be treated as my other colleagues.

@Keratinsmooth

I’ve never been able to carry more than 5 days over to the following year. Carrying over for two years Just wouldn’t be entertained, you would lose this allowance. I’ve been working FT for 30 years.

That is the government guidance.

We had to use AL on Furlough as other going forward there wouldn't have been capacity in the workforce for everyone to take the AL
On the flipside those who weren't Furloughed struggled to get any AL not already booked as there wasn't the scope to have staff off.
I'm afraid I can see the employer's POV and it's fair enough as they probably can't take big chunks of leave off

You are goading OP. I cannot believe you would be this obtuse, honestly.

@user1471538283

Yes your employer can and its reasonable. My friend was furloughed and had to take 2 weeks recently or lose the days. I worked throughout lockdown and can carry leave over because the business cannot have us all taking leave. You've had all this time off essentially whilst others worked.

Was her whole company furloughed as only 10% of mine have.

Absolutely if I went back to work I would be given 24 hours notice.
But if you had booked annual leave you would have been on annual leave. You are being completely unreasonable about this but I suspect you won't ever agree.

Why because I want to be treated as my other colleagues.

you really don't get it, do you.

Why should your working colleagues be treated the same as you, lounging at home?

I am still curious about how you know so much about everybody else circumstances.

Was her whole company furloughed as only 10% of mine have. It doesn't matter. A company can use furlough as it's business needs

You are being daft!

Sorry but if you've been working flat out covering your furloughed colleagues' work then your company has pulled a fast one on you. The reason people have been furloughed is because their work has dried up. You should be doing just your own work, not your colleagues'

Ho, ho, fucking ho

The employer can request when you take annual leave including during furlough. They must give a minimum period of notice though so you should check whether the amount accrued can be taken in the time left.

However the employer should consider whether the employer has been able to actually enjoy some time off for the period of rest and relaxation when they take the leave. If for instance they were full time home schooling solo and had not had any actual time off that would not generally have allowed for rest and relaxation.

I think a good employer would also take into account any leave dates booked later in the year for an essential reason and allow for that.

Furlough was compulsory for many and I think people shouldn’t forget that but also understand how people who weren’t on furlough might feel hard done by.

You have just had months off on furlough, why would you expect to carry over holiday after that?

Err because she wouldn't have been able to go on holiday during that time, given she could be called back to work at any given moment

NO!

The Furlough regulations specifically preserve the right of the furloughed employee to give on holiday during furlough on full pay.

This is the problem with companies not using furlough correctly.

The whole point of furlough was to provide security to those whose jobs/industries completely tanked during the last 8 months.

I’d suggest if you were working so hard during the last 8 months that you barely had time to eat or sleep then you should focus your energy on being angry at your employers who decided to focus on profit maximisation rather than considering employees wellbeing. If you were that busy then your colleague (who would probably love to be back at work) shouldn’t have been furloughed as there was quite clearly work to be done.

A lot of you are getting angry at the wrong people. Furlough has cost us all a ton of money as taxpayers and a lot of it has gone directly into company bank accounts because people have worked themselves sick in fear of being made redundant allowing company’s to furlough vast amounts of their workforce because the people left have picked up all the work.

For what it’s worth OP I don’t think you are being unreasonable if they haven’t been topping you up to 100%. We were allowed to take holiday up to what had been accrued and that was paid at 100%.

Furlough put peoples jobs at risk
NO! It really didn't. All those people who got put on furlough in March/April this year would have been made redundant without it. Living on a redundancy payment and state benefits. Yes it must have been scary for people on furlough, but the aim of it was to keep people and businesses ticking along in order to re-instate as many as possible of them.

Their jobs weren't at risk because of furlough, they were at risk because of the economic measures taken to avoid a world pandemic. Every person who was furloughed should be wise to the potential for redundancy at some point. But at least it wasn't back in March. Peopled need to stop blaming furlough for redundancies. It kept some businesses afloat.

But people back in work, and people who've worked through since March aren't immune either. My company has made people redundant but its a mixture of people who were in work and people who were furloughed.

Fundamentally OP I am with the majority of people on here. You're being unreasonable and I'd honestly not air these views to your employer if they're considering cutting staff.

There used to be a definite tax advantage in taking your earnings as dividends rather than salary, now it is negligible.

Well it depends really, there can still be some large tax savings. For example if the profit (before salary) was £50k and salary was paid to use up the personal allowance and the rest taken in dividends, total tax (incl. NI and corporation tax) would be £9995.

If the £50k was taken as salary (it would have to be less in order to cover the employer NI) then total tax would be £15756. So the tax bill is cut by about 60% by using the minimum salary / dividend method.

At a higher profit level, say £100k the difference reduces as the dividend tax ramps up. In this case the minimum salary and dividend approach would result in £30.8k of total tax whereas a salary only approach results in £39.8k of total tax - still a 30% tax saving.

Anyway we distress...

*digress!

A lot of you are getting angry at the wrong people

Nope, sorry - I get pissed off with entitled fuckers!

I totally get companies cutting things to the bone to have a prospect of survival