Any employment lawyers around ?

[Patchworkpatty]

Just want to ask a theoretical question.. I am lucky enough to be a civil servant who won't suffer financially due to this incredibly worrying time for many workers without reasonable employers. So wanted to ask where they would stand legally if infected by this horrible virus and even died...

Looking at all the construction workers forced to work every day on pain of not getting paid. Or some of the office workers forced to commute on packed tubes because the company has a policy of not allowing working from home simply because they choose this.

This is clearly against government guidelines as the PM has said many times people SHOULD work from home if they are 'able to'. Not because the boss WANTS them to.

Then the worker contacts the virus and ends up on a ventilator or dies. Has the employer failed in their duty of care. ? Placing their employees in harms way against all the advice given?

Obviously not the 'critical workers' but the non critical workers.
I'm thinking of a dear friend being forced to commute for an hour and then take the tube, to sit in an office for 8 hours and then travel home. They have a laptop, COULD work from home but company says it's against policy. She lives with a child with severe asthma. Can't refuse to work as company not shut down, she would lose her job.

The PM didn’t say people shouldn’t go to work. Which is the first flaw in your argument

No, he didn't . That is why I am interested in the position employers could find themselves in. PegasusReturns

As the Housing Secretary has just clearly said in his radio4 interview this morning.. 'The government has clearly told everyone that they MUST work from home if they are not in an essential business .. if it is at all possible to do so.'

Then when questioned about the fact that a number of workers could not maintain the social distancing rule he replied , ' they have the same obligations towards health and safety as they ever did' ..

So my question is, exactly that. If an employer insists on attendance - and employee catches Covid19.. and dies/ends up on life support.. is that not a fundamental failure in duty of care ?

If an employer insists on attendance - and employee catches Covid19.. and dies/ends up on life support.. is that not a fundamental failure in duty of care ?

How do you prove when / how the employee caught Covid19 though? They may have caught it on their commute or at work sure but equally they may have caught it when they went to the supermarket or out for some exercise - how do you prove it’s work related?

An employer must provide a safe workplace. If they cannot do that (through distancing and hygiene measures in this case) they should shut down.

If an employee is dismissed for refusing to work, or because he/she left the workplace for those reasons, it would be automatic unfair dismissal.

That's interesting angle flowery . I think more people need to understand that. I have just spoken to my friend in this tricky position who is effectively forced into work on pain of dismissal.. she is so scared of infecting her child.

This information has given her the courage to phone her boss tomorrow morning and demand he either allows her to work from home or she is leaving and will take him to tribunal.

She has already taken photographs of the cheek by jowl seating in her office that also hasn't been changed (as the computers would have to be reorganised and more desks bought.) Both of which have been refused as 'ridiculous over reaction' and ' not unless the government going to pay for them'.

It's truly shocking and makes me wonder how many people out there are being forced into not adhering to the 'no non-essential travel and social distancing' rules ?

Friend is lucky, if she loses her job she has a husband who can just about manage to keep them afloat until she finds another job .. (tribunals can take months/year) .. what about all the others in this position.

Employment Rights Act 1996 section 100 subsection 1 (d) protects against dismissal for not working in these circumstances.