TUC saying parents should be furloughed if schools are off

[BubblyBarbara]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55522104

Maybe this is more AIBU territory but I feel that while this advice is good intentioned, it's actually very dangerous for parents! While it will work for many people, there are others whose employers will put furloughed employees at the front of the queue for potential future redundancies or might even find they continue to operate fine without the employee. Parents who don't need to take furlough and are OK working from home with children present might also feel pressure to be furloughed they wouldn't otherwise. Is TUC being reasonable with this "advice" to employers?

Its not as simple as saying all parents with school aged children should be furloughed, that then has an impact on the employer trying to cover the rest of the business at a reduced capacity and still having to contribute to the NI and pensions of those furloughed. Its naive to think everyone should be furloughed for childcare reasons and then go back to a fully functioning business at the end of it. In an ideal world it would be great but we're not in an ideal world. I don't know what the answer is but its certainly isn't as black and white as automatic furlough

[quote Dugee]@GoldenOmber

Rishi has a credit card bill to pay - he's not going to be popular when the cuts and tax rises start...[/quote]
Oh you never know, he might decide this has worked out quite well for him and go for UBI. There’s a decent right-wing case for it after all.

Agree that automatic furlough for parents isn’t the answer (was anyone suggesting it?). But I think employers are going to suffer from this anyway, whatever’s in place for working parents, and the uncertainty around school closures won’t help. If you have an employee who’s usually great but now can’t work, it’s not as simple as replacing her with someone who can when you don’t know how long she’ll be off for. Six months, might well be worth the cost of recruitment and training up someone new. Two weeks, probably isn’t. How do you plan around that?

@GoldenOmber the TUC was saying all parents should be furloughed it was kinda the point of the thread

[quote 3littlewords]@GoldenOmber the TUC was saying all parents should be furloughed it was kinda the point of the thread[/quote]
They were ‘calling on employers to offer furlough to all parents affected by school closures’. That isn’t the same as automatic furlough for parents.

See my posts below. Just because you disagree with my posts doesn't mean that my posts are irrelevant.

I was referring to your replies to me since that was all your were posting. Can you stop @ me now?
I didn't see your follow up post until I had posted mine.

TUC running business?! Umm, maybe one to avoid.

@GoldenOmber

They were ‘calling on employers to offer furlough to all parents affected by school closures’. That isn’t the same as automatic furlough for parents.

No, but it's just as ridiculous!

It would end with pretty much all businesses which would otherwise be productive on their knees. There would probably be 25%+ of all staff absent because there's no incentive for them to find a childcare solution.

Yes, it's difficult. Yes, schools closing is going to cause chaos. But simply paying parents to simply stay at home instead of work is economic suicide and could only ever be dreamt up by unions.

There would probably be 25%+ of all staff absent because there's no incentive for them to find a childcare solution.

For a lot of people, in a lot of situations, there are not any childcare solutions to find. It doesn’t matter how much incentive you give people to find them.

I’m not eligible for furlough anyway and will be expected to work. I can WFH but am expected to actually be working from home. I have young children (toddler to young primary age), and at the moment where I live:

• schools are all closed
• nurseries are all closed
• out of school clubs are all closed
• you can’t hire a nanny or a babysitter to come to your house
• childminders are all full
• childcare bubbles aren’t allowed.

That is going to have an impact on my employer. It doesn’t matter how much they or I would prefer it didn’t.

I don’t know what the solution is here either (and suspect it’s going to be a bunch of cobbled-together partial measures), but there is not an outcome where parents just carry on as if this wasn’t happening and there’s no impact on employers.