Talk about…
Over thinking something.
yourhavingalarf:
Talk about…Over thinking something.
If you’re used to getting things your own way, and you actually do get them - you’ll become soft.
Necessity is the mother of invention though.
“Creative Thought” often comes after being uncreatively shafted…
Winseer:
manicpb:
Winseer:
The legal way around “not paying me furlough” then - would be to put me back to work, minimum 20% of the hours I used to be doing - and they’d be turning a profit on that then, with or without furlough money paid to myself. I want any such offers in writing though…The legal way around “not paying you furlough” is to not pay you furlough. Although it’s a bit [zb] of them they have no legal responsibility to pay you anything other than shifts worked, seeing as you’ve worked no shifts they need not pay you anything. I doubt they will claim furlough money if they don’t intend paying it as I reckon that would almost definitely be a prison sentence if proved to be intentional!
Likewise holiday pay. You can request your holiday pay (although notice as per contract must be given, which is probably best getting in writing) or hand in your notice and get your holiday pay in your final pay packet.What I’ve been getting at here is that a firm had to make a decision to claim for all the staff on book or none of them.
How can you furlough some staff and not others otherwise?
There’s also the creative accounting possibility under sub-heading “moral hazard” where one agency with two or more offices that supplies a client with two or more depots…
You get the drivers of one side furloughed, and then back at work after only a single week off on the other side…
The ones displaced at the otherside - will then be the ones like Yours Truly who “ain’t very popular” and hence are too low on the pecking order to get any work, ongoingly…
After a while, those receiving no work will eventually take the hint, resign, and move on - meaning that a full furlough claim made by the entire company rather than site-by-site (third party, remember!) is then not upset by this pesky need for a furlough 80% government grant to “not be laying anyone off, or sacking people for no reason”.
Pressure is to lose staff by natural wastage only.I’d consisder it extremely unlikely that no firms anywhere will claim furlough 80% grants for staff ANY staff - that have since left before that money got down to them…
The difference? - Goes straight into wider company’s pocket, of course…These rules with regards to “zero hours contract agency workers on PAYE” - are left wide-open to agencies managing their book talent between “good agency” and “bad agency”.
The good agency - qualifies for the furlough grant, but then the bods involved initially getting that money are then put back to work after only a single week off… 80% of your money is then “quite satisfactory” albeit you are working 2-4 shifts per week, which may well be 80% of what you used to do. No free money for you, but you’re not complaining, because you know others got bugger all furlough money AND bugger all shifts!
The bad agency - ends up with all the drivers that “won’t be missed”, and because no grant was applied for on that side of the business - no fraud has been committed.
If there’s only one or two staff that turns out “won’t be missed”, then those particular staff may have grounds for bringing a tribunal or acas case, especially if they were constructively dismissed, “shadow Dismissed”, or merely “let go” without mentioning the reason why to the exchequer when asked the awkward questions that should already be in the past by this point… A calculated risk?
Not really. Businessmen going bankrupt only to bounce back and re-emerge as millionaires (like Trump for instance…) are well-versed in the totally legal trait of “dumping your personal losses into someone else’s pocket”, ideally someone who isn’t around anymore to object, or is out-of-reach of any proverbial merchant of Venice after their “Pound of Flesh”…
As I said “Creative Accounting”. Perfectly legal, just questionably immoral and out-of-the-spirit of what the furlough payments where actually meant for in the first place, which was to stop previously working people from “dropping out” of the tax club altogether.It seems absurd to me that a company can split it’s books like this.
Stobarts do it with regards to their financing…
Supermarkets do it with regards to their “waste” liabilities…There’s simply too many things that medium to large firms can do to escape taxes or increase their profits at taxpayer expense.
When this coronavirus thing has ended - there will be a reckoning, should the government then decide to tax firms with a net value of over £1m AFTER the economy has taken it’s share of damage.
If the government foolishly decides to tax Joe PAYE Public instead? Then the notion that Boris Johnson has moved left of Keir Starmer - would be TRUE - wouldn’t it?We didn’t vote Labour because of the threat of higher taxes. - for ANY reason. Even Corbyn’s “Universal Income” - wasn’t a good enough justification to “Pay a little more in taxes” as we found out at the last election…
You keep babbling on in various different threads about not getting furloughed and the subsequent pay you think you “should” receive, but surely unless you have something in your contract about guaranteed paid hours they have no legal obligation to furlough you and pay you anything - isn’t it the same as agency work normally is … work goes quiet, no shifts and no pay. I might be wrong but just the way I see it.
Plus you have spent the last year or so waffling on about full time permanent jobs being rubbish because they only offer “any 5 from 7” and such like shift patterns. Nothing wrong with being agency by the way, but within your long winded waffled posts you’ve on numerous occasions questioned whether full time permanent positions are any more secure than being “full time” agency - well I guess you are finding the answer to that out currently. I would say a lot of full timers are either on furlough or still working on full pay, a lot of agency will be neither unless you have said guarantees.
My arguments are not based around this endemic notion of agencies routinely conning their staff. Plenty of people on here have been banging on about how awful agencies are for years at me, and it would seem they have been proved right all along. This isn’t my argument there, but actually theirs in that regard.
My argument here is how exactly does government-sanctioned Furlough pay get through to furloughed PAYE agency staff for some, but not others, let alone all?
“Furloughment” was supposed to be “Stood down with no work”. So if I’m stood down with no work, then I’m furloughed and should be receiving some money ANY money. If there is any other reason I’m not getting any work (Eg. I’ve been sacked or about to be prosecuted) then one might expect a written notification of such intent as grounds for exclusion stating the reason why it is possible to side-step an entire system designed to compensate a firm for standing down any of their staff “when they don’t have work for them”.
Of course, those who’ve already received such payments - will have no complaints, and play the “I’m alright jack” card with regards to support for their employing firm, and their way of handling the entire furlough issue.
If you leave it to others to decide “who gets” and “who doesn’t”, then you end up with a “favoritism trap” that will eventually lead to even more people out of work and more importantly not returning to work paying taxes which delivers the exact opposite to what the entire furlough scheme was meant to achieve.
Agencies “playing it straight” will struggle to turn a profit on any furlough claimed, should the work be even more scant in the months to come. Staff need to get more than 20% of their original hours before the agency can turn a profit, because the furlough grant only provides 80%. If they can only achieve 0%-19% of original work hours to any one staff member on their books, then there’s no profit for the agency to be had - isn’t there? Someone being paid 80% of their pay to sit at home means an agency handing over the full 80% of the grant they received, leaving no profit for them there. They are therefore going to want as many people qualifying for the get the grant stage, but as few qualifying for the “ongoing payments” stage after that. Perhaps a token week as I’ve suggested, then quickly being replaced by token amounts of work AFTER all, following an initial furlough payment. I’d not expect the same people to be getting full payment for gardenleave week in, week out…
Agencies playing it bent on the other hand, can shuffle people around, make the claim, get rid of those deemed “troublemakers”, regardless of how much those particular staff have made for the agency/client in the past, and by the time the smoke clears, there will only be close-to-retirement UK born sheep alongside easy-to-manipulate Foreigners left to do the work, no “thinking outside the box” allowed. Any money thus intercepted - goes straight into their pockets. No one is asking any questions, because such whistle-blowers, question-askers, and wave-makers are by this point - long gone.
Managers creating work for themselves to protect their own positions, which is understandable I guess…
This business regime might well be what needs to collapse - before the lockdown can end now.
It is akin to the Civil Service or EU bureaucracy at it’s very worst…
“The wrong firms are going bust”.
You cannot have “Favoritism” lest it reduce morale for others looking on so much as to push the very staff that firms want to keep - to actually chuck it in, the moment it becomes worth their while to so so.
Pull out a “Voluntary Redundancy” chair for instance, and often you’ll find Mr Jobsworth “passing it by” (not confident of getting a job elsewhere…) whilst Mrs Super-efficient grabs the payoff with both hands, knowing that they can practically write their own ticket in their next job… The firm loses it’s best staff, and concentrates the worst, many of whom will go on to become… Managers! - Or worse still, “Acting” managers, where they didn’t even realize how the firm conned them into taking a career change with a reduced pension now at the end of it… !
These “acting managers” will then purposefully avoid work issues that make them look bad, try and gather others of their own level that should have gone long ago, and protect their positions, knowing from their point of view, that once this job goes - there’s only early retirement to be had - no further career development.
“Favoritism” is what is wrong with the furlough system - and that’s being kind, because it assumes there are many others like myself that are not getting the furlough pay they expected, and have instead merely been asked to resign from the agency, rather than sacked or threatened with prosecution if they “don’t go quietly”…
Imagine how a Union would behave if a firm decided that only white people got a 5% pay rise, with every other ethnicity getting no pay rise hmm?
On the reverse side, there are already plenty of unionized work places where it is practically impossible to sack an ethnic person, even if they get caught red-handed on camera committing a crime… “Union says No”…
We’ll never have a proper and equal society all the while one side gets routinely lied to, conned, and robbed blind - whilst the other side gets full hand-outs with no quibble “merely because they don’t make waves for the managers” which is not even their bloody job to worry about!
Managers should aim to make money for the firm, keep staff motivated and happy, do their job and go home.
NOT “micro manage”, lie to everyone like politicians do, causes losses for the firm that they brush under the carpet, whilst maximizing any issues and/or sins of those that they want to get rid of, so upstarts that make them look bad for their own inadequacies - get routinely thrown under the bus.
Expect some reforms to the Companies Act before long.
It is time to reform this “Legalized Company Fraudulant Behaviour” thing so at least it ceases and desists in the post-crisis world we are now approaching.
Once upon a time - we only used to expect such firm behaviour out of Brudder-run outfits FFS! 
The people that firms should aim to treat badly IF they are going to treat anyone badly - are those that
Smash up the kit
Go sick all the time
Are generally unreliable when moved to cover someone elses’s duty (Eg. Swap duties, and then don’t turn up…)
Bully and harass colleagues
Are loud and obnoxious in the workplace
Instead, it is
“Leave him alone, he’s harmless.”
“Leave her alone, she’s no trouble”
vs
“Watch him - If he so much as cuts a walkway corner or spends more than 10 minutes in the gents - I want to know about it!”
“Keep an eye on her - She’s too good looking to be working in a place like this What’s she up to?”
and
“Turn a blind eye to that bay door he’s just smashed - he’s harmless”
“Don’t worry about those missing invoices on the computer, she’s probably made a honest mistake”
vs
“Jump on that guy for the slightest tacho infringement - he’s earning more than me, and I resent that”
“Get rid of her the moment she mis-clicks that mouse - She turned me down for a date!”
Winseer:
My argument here is how exactly does government-sanctioned Furlough pay get through to furloughed PAYE agency staff for some, but not others, let alone all?
“Furloughment” was supposed to be “Stood down with no work”. So if I’m stood down with no work, then I’m furloughed and should be receiving some money ANY money. If there is any other reason I’m not getting any work (Eg. I’ve been sacked or about to be prosecuted) then one might expect a written notification of such intent as grounds for exclusion stating the reason why it is possible to side-step an entire system designed to compensate a firm for standing down any of their staff “when they don’t have work for them”.
If you somehow covered it later in your post, forgive me I stopped reading at this paragraph.
Your misunderstanding furlough. If you’ve been stood down with no work, you’ve been layed-off. When layed-off your entitled to your full salaried pay, the alternative to laying-off is redundancies.
To be furloughed there needs to be an agreement between employee and employer that you’ll be stood down with no work on certain conditions. In this case that you’ll get paid by the government scheme and you’ll take a minimum of 3 weeks.
I have signed an agreement to be furloughed however I’m amongst the 25%-33% still working at our place. Have you signed any such agreement?
Either your agency think there’s a chance of you to be called back in within 3 weeks, they can’t be bothered to apply and administrate the governments scheme (no legal requirement for a company to do so) or they dislike you so much they want to stitch you up!?!
tmcassett:
You keep babbling on in various different threads about not getting furloughed and the subsequent pay you think you “should” receive, but surely unless you have something in your contract about guaranteed paid hours they have no legal obligation to furlough you and pay you anything - isn’t it the same as agency work normally is … work goes quiet, no shifts and no pay. I might be wrong but just the way I see it.Plus you have spent the last year or so waffling on about full time permanent jobs being rubbish because they only offer “any 5 from 7” and such like shift patterns. Nothing wrong with being agency by the way, but within your long winded waffled posts you’ve on numerous occasions questioned whether full time permanent positions are any more secure than being “full time” agency - well I guess you are finding the answer to that out currently. I would say a lot of full timers are either on furlough or still working on full pay, a lot of agency will be neither unless you have said guarantees.
It isn’t in anyone’s contract to get or not get furlough pay, because a year ago - no one had ever heard the world “Furlough” before.
The Gov.uk website clearly states that PAYE agency workers - qualify for furlough pay IF they are furloughed by the agency.
My criticism with regards to “Any five from seven” is because one cannot ever plan ahead - if come a week where you’ve booked some odd days holiday - you then get moved about so you’re taking your rest days as holiday, and the firm then doesn’t compensate you for it, because managers can’t be bothered to fix things that cost staff money.
“Any five from seven” is a stick that managers use to reduce full timer’s rights down to that of agency staff then.
FIXED shifts on the other hand - would be a trait of a full timer’s job that is to be embraced.
If there is work for you, you won’t get furlough pay beyond what you’d be earning for whatever shifts you get anyway.
If there is no work for you, you should be getting 80% of your average earnings for the past 12 months - but the firm will try and swing it so the government pays over that 80% grant, only for as many staff as possible that now have no work to have mysteriously left the company books of their own accord, meaning the agency can then pocket that money. Providing “no one got sacked” - there’s no fraud there.
The problem for the agency then - is how to get rid of plenty via natural wastage, whilst reserving the few shifts left available for those workers who would defintely qualify for furlough pay IF you then gave them no work at all… - The Favorites. You give them a week off on 80% pay, then call them back with 21%-79% of the hours that they used to get, even more likely and easy to do if the particular staff member “didn’t do that many hours before the lock-down”, so their average would be a lot lower, and a lot easier to bankroll. The 80% grant is handed over to a firm claiming it for ALL their staff as a “job lot”, not a “case-by-case” basis.
There are a lot of firms who simply cannot afford to bankroll furlough, so will instead close down outright, and not come back.
Those larger firms that CAN afford to bankroll furlough - then have the moral hazard opportunity to fleece as many of their staff out of what should have been a blanket payment to all stood-down staff at once - or NONE of them, meaning that the firm wouldn’t qualify for the grant in the first place.
Only time will tell just how many firms have carefully worked out how they can drive a coach and horses through the government’s poorly-thought-out legislation, and legally get away with pocketing as much grant money as possible - by not passing it onto as many (former) staff members as possible.
If anyone else has got a better explanation of what’s going on here - let’s hear it.
This is opening up to be a full public SCANDAL here - and like the antics of our politicians, “getting away with it” replies much upon the sheer apathy of the general public combined with the “I’m Alright Jack” crowd, not bothering to ask awkward questions of their employers at this time of crisis, as it is… 
I blame…
Brexit.
manicpb:
Winseer:
My argument here is how exactly does government-sanctioned Furlough pay get through to furloughed PAYE agency staff for some, but not others, let alone all?
“Furloughment” was supposed to be “Stood down with no work”. So if I’m stood down with no work, then I’m furloughed and should be receiving some money ANY money. If there is any other reason I’m not getting any work (Eg. I’ve been sacked or about to be prosecuted) then one might expect a written notification of such intent as grounds for exclusion stating the reason why it is possible to side-step an entire system designed to compensate a firm for standing down any of their staff “when they don’t have work for them”.If you somehow covered it later in your post, forgive me I stopped reading at this paragraph.
Your misunderstanding furlough. If you’ve been stood down with no work, you’ve been layed-off. When layed-off your entitled to your full salaried pay, the alternative to laying-off is redundancies.
To be furloughed there needs to be an agreement between employee and employer that you’ll be stood down with no work on certain conditions. In this case that you’ll get paid by the government scheme and you’ll take a minimum of 3 weeks. If an agency lays you off, you don’t get any compensation. If someone claiming furlough grant lays anyone off outright - they are disqualified from that claim. “Furlough” was supposed to be “laying someone off, whilst keeping them on the payroll” The grant allowed a-then zero paid employee to be paid upto 80% of their average prior 12 month earnings.I have signed an agreement to be furloughed however I’m amongst the 25%-33% still working at our place. Have you signed any such agreement?
That would fit in with my previous post. The moment you qualify for furlough, you’ll strangely find extra work being offered, with the furlough money quickly being tapered off you again.Either your agency think there’s a chance of you to be called back in within 3 weeks, they can’t be bothered to apply and administrate the governments scheme (no legal requirement for a company to do so) or they dislike you so much they want to stitch you up!?!
I’ve already been told that the next “Review” to be re-instated at main client is at the 13 week point.
I’ve been offered unpaid assessments at other locations, but no paid work. Since I’m on zero pay already, the last thing I want to do is waste what little fuel I still have on any wild goose chase that won’t even lift my income off the zero mark!! Of course, had Furlough pay been in place at this point - I would have jumped at the chance to do any and all otherwise unpaid assessments - because I’m effectively now being carried financially to act thus. Yes, I think your last sentance is a distinct possibility, because I’m being mostly blanked to all my questions at a time when one would have thought that online communications would be even quicker than normal, 'cos office staff won’t have much to do at home working otherwise!! I’ve also been told some things verbally that have not been followed up in writing, suggesting that I’m being barraged with bull for the duration, and that someone is worried enough by the potential legal backlash to “Not want to tell me anything in official writing”, including dismissal with an actual reason stated.
In any case, it won’t be me doing the litigating, but rather the DWP the way things are going at the moment. This Friday is D-Day in that regard. I have to make a declaration on how much furlough money I’ve received by that date (currently zero) after which it will likely be out of my hands… I’ve already been motioned to approach ACAS as well, but I don’t have a case there as I see it, unless I’m now fired for ‘no reason’ in the meantime. CAB suggest I might have a stronger case with regards to my outstanding holiday of which around six weeks of accrued full timer hour’s worth has mysteriously gone missing… - we’ll see…
yourhavingalarf:
I blame…Brexit.
As a matter of interest, what do we get if we extend like the Remoaners are still banging on for the government to do now?
Go on… Tell us what the massive bribe would be…?
A cure to Coronavirus "…but only if you remain 2-5 years more for further talks…)
…A grant to get people back to work?
…Equal Rights for all us white sub-humans in the workplace?
…Keir Starmer as our next PM if we comply?
Winseer, I do hold sympathy with you for how your being treated, but I don’t believe you have any legal challenge (obviously ACAS will be the best people to advise you on this, with whom you’ve been in touch).
It sounds like you’ve fully researched the topic but here are the links I’ve taken my information from:
gov.uk/lay-offs-short-timeworking
gov.uk/guidance/check-if-yo … ion-scheme
Indeed it sounds as though you could be eligible for furloughed pay, but there has to be an agreement between employer and employee. There is also no legal requirement for a company to offer it.
As has been said, unfortunately it is the pit fall of working via an agency on a flexible contract.
Edited after rereading your post
You definitely have a case regards to your holiday pay. Providing you have the evidence in payslips, it’s a simple process through the small claims court should they not pay up.
Winseer:
tmcassett:
You keep babbling on in various different threads about not getting furloughed and the subsequent pay you think you “should” receive, but surely unless you have something in your contract about guaranteed paid hours they have no legal obligation to furlough you and pay you anything - isn’t it the same as agency work normally is … work goes quiet, no shifts and no pay. I might be wrong but just the way I see it.Plus you have spent the last year or so waffling on about full time permanent jobs being rubbish because they only offer “any 5 from 7” and such like shift patterns. Nothing wrong with being agency by the way, but within your long winded waffled posts you’ve on numerous occasions questioned whether full time permanent positions are any more secure than being “full time” agency - well I guess you are finding the answer to that out currently. I would say a lot of full timers are either on furlough or still working on full pay, a lot of agency will be neither unless you have said guarantees.
It isn’t in anyone’s contract to get or not get furlough pay, because a year ago - no one had ever heard the world “Furlough” before.
The Gov.uk website clearly states that PAYE agency workers - qualify for furlough pay IF they are furloughed by the agency.
My criticism with regards to “Any five from seven” is because one cannot ever plan ahead - if come a week where you’ve booked some odd days holiday - you then get moved about so you’re taking your rest days as holiday, and the firm then doesn’t compensate you for it, because managers can’t be bothered to fix things that cost staff money.
“Any five from seven” is a stick that managers use to reduce full timer’s rights down to that of agency staff then.
FIXED shifts on the other hand - would be a trait of a full timer’s job that is to be embraced.If there is work for you, you won’t get furlough pay beyond what you’d be earning for whatever shifts you get anyway.
If there is no work for you, you should be getting 80% of your average earnings for the past 12 months - but the firm will try and swing it so the government pays over that 80% grant, only for as many staff as possible that now have no work to have mysteriously left the company books of their own accord, meaning the agency can then pocket that money. Providing “no one got sacked” - there’s no fraud there.
The problem for the agency then - is how to get rid of plenty via natural wastage, whilst reserving the few shifts left available for those workers who would defintely qualify for furlough pay IF you then gave them no work at all… - The Favorites. You give them a week off on 80% pay, then call them back with 21%-79% of the hours that they used to get, even more likely and easy to do if the particular staff member “didn’t do that many hours before the lock-down”, so their average would be a lot lower, and a lot easier to bankroll. The 80% grant is handed over to a firm claiming it for ALL their staff as a “job lot”, not a “case-by-case” basis.
There are a lot of firms who simply cannot afford to bankroll furlough, so will instead close down outright, and not come back.
Those larger firms that CAN afford to bankroll furlough - then have the moral hazard opportunity to fleece as many of their staff out of what should have been a blanket payment to all stood-down staff at once - or NONE of them, meaning that the firm wouldn’t qualify for the grant in the first place.Only time will tell just how many firms have carefully worked out how they can drive a coach and horses through the government’s poorly-thought-out legislation, and legally get away with pocketing as much grant money as possible - by not passing it onto as many (former) staff members as possible.
If anyone else has got a better explanation of what’s going on here - let’s hear it.
This is opening up to be a full public SCANDAL here - and like the antics of our politicians, “getting away with it” replies much upon the sheer apathy of the general public combined with the “I’m Alright Jack” crowd, not bothering to ask awkward questions of their employers at this time of crisis, as it is…
I never said it was in “anyone’s” contract to be furloughed and get the 80% pay but you still don’t seem to understand what I was getting at (others have said it to you in this thread as well).
You incorrectly seem to think that because the agency are not offering you any shifts that they MUST put you on furlough and pay you 80% of your last years earnings. It is entirely their choice whether to apply for the scheme for any of its PAYE workers or not and they have no legal obligation to do so if they choose not to, your beef seems to be that you have read PAYE agency workers “qualify” for the furlough scheme - which they do indeed, however that does not mean they actually have to put you on it if they don’t think its worthwhile for them. Clearly they don’t think your worthwhile - that’s agency for you after all, if you don’t want to work for them after all this is over then there will always be someone else on their books who will.
I mean you may have answered it already in one of your posts but you haven’t said if you have any sort of minimum guaranteed shifts or hours in your contract or if you are just ZHC - apologies if you have stated but I usually stop reading around paragraph 3 as I often struggle to see what point you are actually making.
Anyway, if you have some sort of guarantee in your contract stating you get x amount of shifts or x amount of hours per week, then yes they should either be offering you furlough or terminating your contract.
Winseer:
yourhavingalarf:
I blame…Brexit.
As a matter of interest, what do we get if we extend like the Remoaners are still banging on for the government to do now?
Go on… Tell us what the massive bribe would be…?
A cure to Coronavirus "…but only if you remain 2-5 years more for further talks…)
…A grant to get people back to work?
…Equal Rights for all us white sub-humans in the workplace?
…Keir Starmer as our next PM if we comply?
Woosh!..
Those decent businesses that cannot afford to bankroll furlough pay - are going bust. The won’t and can’t claim - because they’ve already let some of their people go, which disqualifies them from claiming the 80% grant.
Medium sized businesses that see Furlough grants as a licence to print money - are already working on how to get the grant, and then get rid of the very staff they’ve claimed involving as an excuse NOT to hand it over.
Large Businesses - can afford to bankroll furlough, but are not the ones that then WANT to furlough anyone, because they know what a stink it’ll cause if they try and claim the money when they clearly don’t need to be doing so.
tmcassett:
Winseer:
tmcassett:
“I never said it was in “anyone’s” contract to be furloughed and get the 80% pay but you still don’t seem to understand what I was getting at (others have said it to you in this thread as well).
You incorrectly seem to think that because the agency are not offering you any shifts that they MUST put you on furlough and pay you 80% of your last years earnings. It is entirely their choice whether to apply for the scheme for any of its PAYE workers or not and they have no legal obligation to do so if they choose not to, your beef seems to be that you have read PAYE agency workers “qualify” for the furlough scheme - which they do indeed, however that does not mean they actually have to put you on it if they don’t think its worthwhile for them. Clearly they don’t think your worthwhile - that’s agency for you after all, if you don’t want to work for them after all this is over then there will always be someone else on their books who will.
I mean you may have answered it already in one of your posts but you haven’t said if you have any sort of minimum guaranteed shifts or hours in your contract or if you are just ZHC - apologies if you have stated but I usually stop reading around paragraph 3 as I often struggle to see what point you are actually making.
Anyway, if you have some sort of guarantee in your contract stating you get x amount of shifts or x amount of hours per week, then yes they should either be offering you furlough or terminating your contract.”
I accept the fact that I’ve been shafted here, but I disapprove of the way the firm has likely still claimed the 80% from the government, likely at some regional offices but not others when it should be “All or None” in the application for the 80% payroll grant.
Having applied for the grant at some offices/clients then - I’ve clearly not made the cut for being transferred sideways to work at an alternative location of the same client firm, despite having worked out of such yard beforehand, so no need for “unpaid assessments” etc. I would have expected to be offered a token shift at a more remote yard just a single long shift per week (thus exceeding 20% of my previous average hours) - in order to “not pay me any furlough money, 'cos I’m still getting work”… To be stood down from 50+ hours per week to zero hours per week - comes as a cruel shock at a time when the entire spirit of the furlough scheme was to avoid employees working full time hours, including zero hours workers working full time hours -getting into debt and other financial hardship as a result of going to zero pay, as is the right of any ZHC employer as you’ve pointed out. So much for the Government’s efforts to avoid “abuses of the new system” they’ve put in place. One would have thought that an agency would prefer those of it’s staff that do the most hours, simply because their business model takes a cut from each hour worked by each employee… Big hours thus makes them more bottom line than small hours. But no. 
I’ve even been told verbally that my insistance on start times 18:00-22:00 is “causing a problem” WTF■■?
If the only hours available are say, early doors - then I surely reserve the right to not take those shifts at all, which I orginally put on my application. This attempt to effectively make me “any five from seven” in all but name - failed miserably on their part, but I’m the one who ultimately carried the can for them not living upto their own standards. “ZHC workers are not obliged to take any shift they don’t want to”.
This latter aspect “A dearth of work between 18:00 and 22:00” is a different matter of course, and something which I’ve noticed has become rather acute since April 1st and the end of the Swedish Derogation, along with the BIG uplift of hourly rate for such shifts that has actually already been booted down the road, because of the ongoing lockdown.
So this is what we’ve come to: A decent pay award to those like me who like working night shift - only for everyone insisting on working those shifts to get thrown under the bus like this at the first opportunity.
Perfectly legal to do to me, - yes - but not claim furlough grants for others who are still there, and only “token stood down” for a few days to satisfy the grant application criteria…
You have been warned!
If this lockdown is now extended any further, and the work doesn’t pick up AFTER all - don’t be surprised if all these agency shenanigans start to bite when whatever work you’ve been getting up to date, suddenly turns to zippo, but there is then a log-jam for getting the furlough payments, because the agency have already used that money up elsewhere within their wider business…
Remember the scandal over “Pseudo-PAYE” agencies that were deducting tax and NIcs - and then not handing those amounts over the HMRC, then going bust, or changing the company name - leaving the hapless staff member with a big back-tax bill, and none of the businesses being punished for it? The Staff member had to pay their tax and NICs twice - the Staff member got chased and/or accused of stuff by HMRC The Staff member got all the stress, loss, and heartache. The Business - just changed it’s name, hid behind Ltd company liability, and moved on to wreck more lives elsewhere… Boom Boom!
This Furlough grant loophole then - is just another “Creative Accounting Opportunity” - I’m telling you.
Post-lockdown, this “Scandal” could become even bigger than Brexit in due course - because the public will NOT want a repeat of what happened during the aftermath of the 1930’s depression, where we needed WWII to re-boot the entire economy again… Businessess MUST “Do their bit”, rather than reach into the taxpayer’s pocket at ever opportunity “just to do the decent thing”.
If we end up keeping a bullying business culture where “only the subserviant get and hold jobs” - when we might as well ALL be working for gangsters in due course…
Come to think of it, being a “Boss Driver” was one of the best driving jobs one could get in the 1930’s - America at least… 
With the conspiracy theory firmly in his head that the company is claiming the furlough grant and keeping it, is it time to call Mulder and Scully ■■?
I changed my settings with how his posts are shown, so now I no longer see his extended posts in my newsfeed, so they just WOOSH past
peirre:
With the conspiracy theory firmly in his head that the company is claiming the furlough grant and keeping it, is it time to call Mulder and Scully ■■?I changed my settings with how his posts are shown, so now I no longer see his extended posts in my newsfeed, so they just WOOSH past
Same here with Mr tin foil hat 
Winseer:
tmcassett:
Winseer:
tmcassett:
“I never said it was in “anyone’s” contract to be furloughed and get the 80% pay but you still don’t seem to understand what I was getting at (others have said it to you in this thread as well).
You incorrectly seem to think that because the agency are not offering you any shifts that they MUST put you on furlough and pay you 80% of your last years earnings. It is entirely their choice whether to apply for the scheme for any of its PAYE workers or not and they have no legal obligation to do so if they choose not to, your beef seems to be that you have read PAYE agency workers “qualify” for the furlough scheme - which they do indeed, however that does not mean they actually have to put you on it if they don’t think its worthwhile for them. Clearly they don’t think your worthwhile - that’s agency for you after all, if you don’t want to work for them after all this is over then there will always be someone else on their books who will.
I mean you may have answered it already in one of your posts but you haven’t said if you have any sort of minimum guaranteed shifts or hours in your contract or if you are just ZHC - apologies if you have stated but I usually stop reading around paragraph 3 as I often struggle to see what point you are actually making.
Anyway, if you have some sort of guarantee in your contract stating you get x amount of shifts or x amount of hours per week, then yes they should either be offering you furlough or terminating your contract.”I accept the fact that I’ve been shafted here, but I disapprove of the way the firm has likely still claimed the 80% from the government, likely at some regional offices but not others when it should be “All or None” in the application for the 80% payroll grant.
Having applied for the grant at some offices/clients then - I’ve clearly not made the cut for being transferred sideways to work at an alternative location of the same client firm, despite having worked out of such yard beforehand, so no need for “unpaid assessments” etc. I would have expected to be offered a token shift at a more remote yard just a single long shift per week (thus exceeding 20% of my previous average hours) - in order to “not pay me any furlough money, 'cos I’m still getting work”… To be stood down from 50+ hours per week to zero hours per week - comes as a cruel shock at a time when the entire spirit of the furlough scheme was to avoid employees working full time hours, including zero hours workers working full time hours -getting into debt and other financial hardship as a result of going to zero pay, as is the right of any ZHC employer as you’ve pointed out. So much for the Government’s efforts to avoid “abuses of the new system” they’ve put in place. One would have thought that an agency would prefer those of it’s staff that do the most hours, simply because their business model takes a cut from each hour worked by each employee… Big hours thus makes them more bottom line than small hours. But no.
I’ve even been told verbally that my insistance on start times 18:00-22:00 is “causing a problem” WTF■■?
If the only hours available are say, early doors - then I surely reserve the right to not take those shifts at all, which I orginally put on my application. This attempt to effectively make me “any five from seven” in all but name - failed miserably on their part, but I’m the one who ultimately carried the can for them not living upto their own standards. “ZHC workers are not obliged to take any shift they don’t want to”.This latter aspect “A dearth of work between 18:00 and 22:00” is a different matter of course, and something which I’ve noticed has become rather acute since April 1st and the end of the Swedish Derogation, along with the BIG uplift of hourly rate for such shifts that has actually already been booted down the road, because of the ongoing lockdown.
So this is what we’ve come to: A decent pay award to those like me who like working night shift - only for everyone insisting on working those shifts to get thrown under the bus like this at the first opportunity.
Perfectly legal to do to me, - yes - but not claim furlough grants for others who are still there, and only “token stood down” for a few days to satisfy the grant application criteria…
You have been warned!If this lockdown is now extended any further, and the work doesn’t pick up AFTER all - don’t be surprised if all these agency shenanigans start to bite when whatever work you’ve been getting up to date, suddenly turns to zippo, but there is then a log-jam for getting the furlough payments, because the agency have already used that money up elsewhere within their wider business…
Remember the scandal over “Pseudo-PAYE” agencies that were deducting tax and NIcs - and then not handing those amounts over the HMRC, then going bust, or changing the company name - leaving the hapless staff member with a big back-tax bill, and none of the businesses being punished for it? The Staff member had to pay their tax and NICs twice - the Staff member got chased and/or accused of stuff by HMRC The Staff member got all the stress, loss, and heartache. The Business - just changed it’s name, hid behind Ltd company liability, and moved on to wreck more lives elsewhere… Boom Boom!
This Furlough grant loophole then - is just another “Creative Accounting Opportunity” - I’m telling you.
Post-lockdown, this “Scandal” could become even bigger than Brexit in due course - because the public will NOT want a repeat of what happened during the aftermath of the 1930’s depression, where we needed WWII to re-boot the entire economy again… Businessess MUST “Do their bit”, rather than reach into the taxpayer’s pocket at ever opportunity “just to do the decent thing”.
If we end up keeping a bullying business culture where “only the subserviant get and hold jobs” - when we might as well ALL be working for gangsters in due course…
Come to think of it, being a “Boss Driver” was one of the best driving jobs one could get in the 1930’s - America at least…
I honestly think you are making this infinitely more complicated than it is.
Staffline are not a tin pot organisation, they won’t be claiming anything dodgily. There is a very big difference between a PAYE driver who like Conor sounds like he is at Howdens, and someone like yourself who by your own admission is constantly chasing specific nights/weekends/premium rates.
The end user aka the Client will probably dictate to Staffline who they would want them to Furlough, if it’s a remotely specialist job or one as I say like Howdens who are red hot on having a very specific pool of drivers then it’s in everyone’s interest to furlough you to minimise disruption when normal service is resumed.
However if you are one of the zillions doing supermarket work and are ten a penny there would be massive apathy from both client and agency alike, it’s an administrative ballache and they won’t bother.
I agree it’s unfair but payroll for agencies is a massive expensive, labour intensive pain in the neck. Adding the furlough process into the mix is just not worth the bother in their eyes.
ATJT:
if it’s a remotely specialist job or one as I say like Howdens who are red hot on having a very specific pool of drivers then it’s in everyone’s interest to furlough you to minimise disruption when normal service is resumed.
You hit the nail on the head with this paragraph. I tend to work consistently for the client who I’m assigned to for very long periods of time.
To add salt to the wounded I’ll give you one guess who furloughed me for the past 4 weeks?
Is it not funny the OP slags off full timers then moans when the agency leaves him dry. Agency work i have never done it. Talk to your agency, holiday pay yes you should get it. Furlough pay is not easy to fiddle you think HMRC will not follow up after this. Everyone furloughed in our place has been given a letter to sign by orders of the government. If you feel hard done by you can take it further but remember legal advice does not come cheap unless you are a union member. What has your workplace union said.
WheelsofCardiff:
Is it not funny the OP slags off full timers then moans when the agency leaves him dry. Agency work i have never done it. Talk to your agency, holiday pay yes you should get it. Furlough pay is not easy to fiddle you think HMRC will not follow up after this. Everyone furloughed in our place has been given a letter to sign by orders of the government. If you feel hard done by you can take it further but remember legal advice does not come cheap unless you are a union member. What has your workplace union said.
As for the letter, yes me and rest of my work colleagues have had a letter to sign from out HR dept
Also HMRC will check against PAYE records
Sent while in furlough