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Regional secretary with the National Education Union
What should we make of the governments Coronavirus jobs retention scheme?

THE government’s recently announced Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was met with widespread approval.  

According to the government website, “all UK employers with a PAYE scheme will be able to access support to continue paying part of their employees’ salary for those that would otherwise have been laid off during this crisis.”

It is further explained that the scheme is to apply to “all employees who have been asked to stop working, but who are being kept on the payroll, otherwise described as ‘furloughed workers’.”  

  • Ensure that the scheme applies not only to “employees,” but also at least to “workers,” and indeed the self-employed
  • Ensure that the scheme includes zero-hours contract and agency workers, addressing levels of entitlement and responsibility for making claims on behalf of workers
  • The amount of the wages guaranteed: why have they settled on 80 per cent up to £2,500 a month, and is this adequate?
  • The relationship between this scheme and the guaranteed payments scheme in the Employment Rights Act 1996, which provides much lower levels of support
  • The meaning of wages or pay for the purposes of the scheme — this is a complex question as litigation under the holiday pay provisions of the Working Time Regulations makes clear
  • The application of the scheme not only to workers who are “furloughed” (to repeat the revealing Treasury term apparently used in investment banks and hedge funds), but also those who are taking a hit because they have been put on short-time working
  • Procedures for the resolution of disputes and the imposition of criminal penalties where employers either defraud the scheme, or do not pass on the money to their workers
  • Any amendment to or termination of the scheme by the government, and guarantee the role of the TUC and CBI in any renegotiations — to embed social dialogue which must surely continue more generally when we rebuild post-crisis. 
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