Furlough

[GizmoGremlin]

I've been on furlough for 7 weeks. My employer informed me I am being taken off furlough and will be returning to work. I can't work full time due to lack of childcare. They have now told me not to return to work. What do I do??

I can’t find the so article now. Sorry. Will keep looking.

TBH my employer was very naughty and waited to last minute to send it and didn’t give us a proper chance to review it. FFS

The contractual agreement between the parties being silent on the question of when it ends does not in any way imply that 3-4 weeks’ notice would be required.

My employer sent letters out stating the furlough conditions and that they will give 48hrs notice to return to work.

Thing is if people looking for x weeks notice to go back to work. It just won’t happen. It would effectively give you another 3-4 weeks plus not working!

”My employer sent letters out stating the furlough conditions and that they will give 48hrs notice to return to work.”

That’s common and would normally be reasonable. As I said, may be different if someone is on furlough because they have childcare issues, and it might involve finding a different solution.

This is why a lot of people are having problems. If people asked for the detail mentioned before agreeing to be furloughed, things would be easier. I appreciate a lot of people panicked though

Why would an employee not agree to be furloughed? If there's no work for them the only other option would have been to have been made redundant would it not? As with so much at the moment employers had to act quickly in the interests of the employee, expecting 3-4 weeks of government funded notice to return to work would be totally unreasonable imo

I didn't say they shouldn't agree to be furloughed. My point was it would have been useful to have clearer terms around a major variation of people's contracts. I agree that 4 weeks notice is not reasonable.

”Why would an employee not agree to be furloughed? If there's no work for them the only other option would have been to have been made redundant would it not?”

Not necessarily. Plenty of employees refused. Sometimes they didn’t think their employer would go ahead with redundancies, at least not immediately. Sometimes they want redundancy, if they’ve got long service and fancy a payout instead (which the employer may not be able to actually pay currently). Sometimes the employer wasn’t furloughing everyone and people didn’t want to be chosen (and some who weren’t chosen did want to be).

Most people have been sensible and realistic and cooperative but not all.