To refuse to go back to the office

[tillytalks]

I’m currently on mat leave and due back to work on the 15th March.

I work in an office with 12 other people.
At present everyone is in the office.

There is no reason why people can’t work from
home, and I’m pretty sure the reason is that management are the type that wouldn’t trust staff to work at home.
It’s a family run business and the owners are quite precious.

I’m really careful, I don’t mix, I follow the rules to the letter.

I’m 34, have mild asthma and I also have a high BMI (more than 30 but less than 40)
I’m working out and eating well so I’m hoping this will reduce.

Even still, I just don’t feel comfortable sitting in an office all day with 12 other people.
The office isn’t big. It’s a long room, and although we can distance, I feel like it would still be crowded.

I know that I wouldn’t be given any preferential treatment to work from home, but I haven’t asked so can’t be too sure.

I’ll be working 3 days per week and my son (who will be 13m) will be in a nursery.

I’m also aware that my son being in nursery puts me at risk which is something else I’ve been thinking over.

AIBU to not want to return?

I work in a very small building with 30 other people.
The vast majority of whom are mask exempt and don't comprehend social distancing.

Go to work!

@WoolyMamamoth

*High risk is DIFFERENT to clinically vulnerable.

CEV get shielding letters. High risk don’t.* -

People at moderate risk (clinically vulnerable) -

You are using the term clinically vulnerable when you mean clinically extremely vulnerable (ie. shielding).

Clearly the terminology is completely different in England. They’re the opposite to Wales. 🤦🏻‍♀️

@TitsOot4Xmas

I checked it with ACAS too.☹️

I’ve 20 years in HR/employment law. They cannot reduce your built up entitlement to leave during maternity or require you to return early or lose leave. It is not legal.

@TitsOot4Xmas

Here’s the full story...

I went onto mat leave in Feb 2020.

I had stated I would be taking 10 months Mat leave, using14 days holiday in and retiring mid Jan.
This was accepted.

I then wrote to them, and asked to extend my maternity leave to the full 12 months and add on my 14 days holiday.
This would take me to 15th March.

At the same time I put in a request to reduce my hours to part time, both were accepted.

Our holiday year runs March - Feb so I realised (after my request had been accepted) that I would have more than 14 days holiday entitlement.

I contacted them and asked them about this.

They confirmed I had accrued 31 days holiday (including bank holidays) and they gave me the following options...

1. End mat leave early and add on the 31 days holiday, be paid them at full time hours, return to work 15th March as agreed.

1. Take 12 months mat leave, be paid in full for 14 days holiday, return to work 15th March.

Carry over 17 days holiday into my new holiday year. (Which would be added to the new holiday year allowance) They would allow me to use this over a two year period. I would be paid for them on a pro rata basis, based on my new part time hours.

I chose option 1.

There was no option to rerun to work past the 15th March.

I discussed with ACAs they said it was fine.

Your bosses are dicks. You should all be working from home unless there's a good reason not to (mental health, no space, etc). They are being very unreasonable
Noone here knows this. OP assessment that she can do her job to satisfaction from home might be very different to her bosses. Maybe things have changed since she went on maternity leave meaning that it isn't possible (new system etc...).

The disagreement in relation to the holidays not backed up by ACAS leads to believe that OP misunderstood what they meant by paid at PT hours and it could also be that OP is being a bit short with the truth about bring about to do the job from home.

After all, it seems incredible that if it is indeed possible, not one of the 12 staff has challenged it.

Ah. That’s different to what you implied previously. You still get the full time accrual, but use it on your full time hours. That’s fine.

I had the same issue with my annual leave when I returned from maternity leave. I work for a local government, massive HR dept, massive legal dept, checked with the unions. I could take a year maternity, but if I wanted to return part time, then my accrued holiday over maternity leave would be counted as accrued on my part time hours. So if your 1yr maternity ends and you return part time under a new contract, they are right that you would have been paid the annual leave under the part time basis once the new contract date was enforced, if you hadn't used it before that date. So definitely no legal issue with that there - it was the correct thing to do.

Re: returning to work. Nursery is definitely the greater risk of spread. Kids can't socially distance, whereas adults can. Kids generally cough and sneeze in each other's faces etc. So if this is what is making you most nervous more so than actually being in the office, maybe see if you can have unpaid/parental leave until the summer. See if you can take 3 months. Vaccine will have covered more people, weather is better etc.

And yes, an office can legally ask you to come in if they can demonstrate they are covid compliant and if THEY say it's essential for you to come in. It doesn't matter if you say you could do the work from home, if they say you need to be in for whatever reason (easier for people to communicate issues if all in the same room rather than waste time sending frequent emails etc), then they're allowed to do that and you definitely couldn't get constructive dismissal for them expecting you to work in the office.

It is not an easy decision as the rules say people should work from home if they can, which seems sensible. However your work seems to think you can’t but you think you can , so there seems to be a divergence of thoughts about whether you can achieve your work remotely.
Can you write down a plan how you could fulfil your work from home perhaps?
It might also mean that there are extra costs to the employer - would they have to buy you a new computer, desk, chair etc for your home? If they had to do this for every employee, and they would have to show equal opportunities I suspect, the cost could be quite vast in comparison to any income they have in these difficult times.
Maybe you can have this conversation with them but only you can decide whether this will be safe or cause problems , if there are any possible redundancies in the future they may remember this conversation however water tight redundancy terms seem to be. Some employers don’t like people who cause problems or question what they do for whatever reason.

Last year I was in a situation working in an environment that was not risk free and was given the choice of either coming in or resigning. I resigned and I miss working - i worked at a lovely place with a great boss and fantastic people - but the risk to another family member who would be at risk if I brought the virus home was too great.
I also understand the situation from my employer’s point of view though - if I can’t do the job I am paid to do then why should I be paid?

This virus has lead to a lot of anguish and hard decisions but the main thing is for you and your family to be healthy.
Take care, stay healthy and I wish you all the best

@dontdisturbmenow

The disagreement in relation to the holidays not backed up by ACAS leads to believe that OP misunderstood what they meant by paid at PT hours and it could also be that OP is being a bit short with the truth about bring about to do the job from home.

I didn’t misunderstand anything. I have it all on email.

I could take a year maternity, but if I wanted to return part time, then my accrued holiday over maternity leave would be counted as accrued on my part time hours. So if your 1yr maternity ends and you return part time under a new contract, they are right that you would have been paid the annual leave under the part time basis once the new contract date was enforced, if you hadn't used it before that date. So definitely no legal issue with that there - it was the correct thing to do.

Absolutely wrong.

If someone is on maternity on a full time contract, their leave accrues on a full time basis. If they return part time the accrued leave covers more days and cannot legally be reduced.

So if full time holiday is 30 days, and a year’s mat leave is taken, 30 days accrues. If they return half time, they still have 30 days, which will cover twice as much leave. The accrues leave absolutely cannot be reduced to 15 days on return.

They would allow me to use this over a two year period. I would be paid for them on a pro rata basis, based on my new part time hours
What they probably meant was that the 17 days would carry over but added to your new entitlement which would be prorata.

A lot of people probably could work from home but unless the government enforces it, lots of people will tell their workers to come in.

That’s the sad truth, so you may have to go in.

[quote tillytalks]@dontdisturbmenow

The disagreement in relation to the holidays not backed up by ACAS leads to believe that OP misunderstood what they meant by paid at PT hours and it could also be that OP is being a bit short with the truth about bring about to do the job from home.

I didn’t misunderstand anything. I have it all on email. [/quote]
You didn’t put the email on here. What you said was that they would reduce your accrued leave to your part time contract - that’s not what you have more recently explained.

Having asthma puts you at higher risk. Being overweight (or underweight, for that matter) puts you at higher risk.

However, unless you have severe asthma (the kind that your consultant is struggling to control properly because it's so severe) and you're orbidly obese (note, not even regular obese), you're not considered vulnerable, and you get no special treatment.

I sympathise - I think there are quite a lot of us who know we have a higher risk, but one that isn't large enough to qualify us for anything than the last group of people to be vaccinated. It's enough to make you worry, but not enough to let you actually do anything.

Not being white and being a bit fat push my risk up, which I'm nervous about too. I can't change my ethnicity, but I've been steadily losing weight since March. I'm hoping to get my BMI down even further by the time I'm forced back in as it's best thing I can do to reduce my risk factors.

I appreciate losing weight after just having had a baby is not easy, but I would suggest it's the only thing within your control right now to get your risks down, beyond not returning to work.

I'm so frustrated - I've actually been working from home since March and doing a very good job of it, but the powers that be want us back in at the first opportunity. I've been so stressed each time they've been about to force us back in, but then we've had further lockdown restrictions that have delayed their plans.

If they'd just commit to letting us work from home until X, I'd feel much happier. As it stands, I feel I'm waiting for an axe to fall. I'm 100% reliant on Government guidance recommending everyone to work from home. I sincerely hope it doesn't change.

In the periods in which coming into the office has been encouraged, people have caught Covid. It hasn't been proven at work, and they've cleaned, so that's all OK apparently. However, if they hadn't had to travel to work in the first place, they would have reduced their chances of picking it up somewhere.

I'm not necessarily saying I'll catch Covid in my office, but the commute puts us all at risk, especially when we have jobs that can be done at home...

Unfortunately too many employers have been stung by agreeing to WFH on the basis of the child going to nursery, then seeing the claimed arrangements magically disappear. It's true that some are mulish about WFH in general, but then plenty are making decisions on the basis of cold hard experience

In the end, if the place is still Covid secure when the date arrives, it's up to OP whether to return or not ... and it's up to the employer whether or not to keep her if she doesn't

@Heartlantern2 I agree the government should enforce wfh. Starting with a list of employment/jobs which must be wfh, or an alternative would be offices only open a limited number of days per week (as in 1973/74) with exceptions for schools, hospitals, those shops allowed to open, and a few others I cannot think of.

@TitsOot4Xmas

You didn’t put the email on here. What you said was that they would reduce your accrued leave to your part time contract - that’s not what you have more recently explained.

My apologies, I meant I would be paid for them on my part time hours.

@Belladonna12

It's awful that some workplaces are doing this. No way would I resign in your position though. If you can take the risk of being sacked , I would state that you can't go in because you are high risk. The rules are that you should only work if you can't work from home so whatever people say, they are breaking them.

This. As someone returning from maternity leave yiunare also in a good position. If you can WFH your employees are v much in the wrong

Are you party of a union? If not, join one

YABU like pp said some of us who are vulnerable are still going out to work and have been all along

They would allow me to use this over a two year period. I would be paid for them on a pro rata basis, based on my new part time hours.

So, to be clear: they are saying you will not lose any holiday hours, it's just that they want you to spread it over two years rather than be off until April?

I suspect issue is you don’t want to go back to work and are looking for an excuse

A little harsh perhaps, but probably not far from the truth

Difficult as the current situation is, employers have seen this so many times, and sadly it's one more reason why working parents and their rights are likely to be badly affected

@Vivana

YABU like pp said some of us who are vulnerable are still going out to work and have been all along

But surely the more people who WFH the better? To then reduce the transmission and help protect people like yourself, who is indeed vulnerable and physically can't do your job from home?

@Vivana

YABU like pp said some of us who are vulnerable are still going out to work and have been all along

It's not a race to the bottom. It's not going to benefit you if people are forced to go into offices when they don't need to to get the job done .OP doesn't need to go into an office do her job and therefore shouldn't have to to.

YABU and using your high BMI as an excuse really doesn't wash - that is your responsibility.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

I suspect issue is you don’t want to go back to work and are looking for an excuse

A little harsh perhaps, but probably not far from the truth

Difficult as the current situation is, employers have seen this so many times, and sadly it's one more reason why working parents and their rights are likely to be badly affected

@Puzzledandpissedoff

I do want to go back to work. I just don’t want to put myself at any unnecessary risk.

@Fr0thandBubble

YABU and using your high BMI as an excuse really doesn't wash - that is your responsibility.

@Fr0thandBubble

I’m not trying to use my BMI as an excuse.

I’m simply just stating my circumstances.

My BMI doesn’t put me into the vulnerable category. That’s 40+... mine is nowhere near that.

I am however asthmatic. Is that my doing too...?