Winseer:
I don’t think I was the only one to not get paid… From a business angle it might have been worked out by management on both sides (client and agency) as follows:
(1) Do you have enough work for this bod to make up between 20% and 100% of their former regular hours they were working…?
If so, then give them the 20% exactly (one shift out of the five they used to do…) so that when we pay them 20% of their former wage for doing 20% of the work - we can claim the other 80% from the government, and everyone’s happy. We’re getting his services for the usual cost to us, and we’re keeping them on as being wanted when this is all over.
(2) There is NOT enough work left for this bod to get 20%, so we’ll stand them down on nothing at all. We don’t want to be paying them 20% with the government making up the other 80%, so we’ll just let that person sit at home, still on the books here, but getting no work for some time to come. If they leave of their own accord in the meantime, then we have not fraudulently applied for furlough grant in this person’s name/number on the books.
(3) There’s no work for ANYONE - in which case we’ll have to fold the agency, as there’s no way we can afford to make up the 20% for our people to sit at home not earning at the client’s yard…
OR… We can enter into an agreement with stood-down drivers - ALL of them - that they might accept 75% of their pay (for example) which would allow the grant to cover this amount of payroll, and leave us with 5% to pocket to cover our own administrative process…
My beef with all this was that the client can pick and choose which people they want to ask for “by name”, so that johnny blue eyes gets their 20% of shifts, and qualifies for any furlough payment - at no cost to neither client or agency NET. Any reasons at all why someone else, such as myself - can’t have 20% of their former hours - means that we could be paid, but let’s just get rid of them by the backdoor instead, which just isn’t honest, as I suspect that had I been directly dismissed for any actual proper reason - any cliam for a furlough grant by the wider business, at least for that one location of that business chain - might be put in danger of being “Fraudulent”. FIrms are not supposed to pay furlough to some, and let go others. It was meant to be an “Everyone” or “No one” on a location-by-location basis.
I have heard of some other examples of such practices by agency/client yard team-ups in the last few weeks NOT me this time around, but like those other people on here who didn’t get the furlough they may have been expecting…
Here’s the scam:
Firm wants you to “resign” so they don’t get into trouble. Agency bod refuses, and insists on being dismissed, if the firm has any objections that could lead to an actual fair and square dismissal.
Firm then calls bod into office, and shows them some firm’s camera footage of say, driver speeding, or using a phone whilst driving…
Firm then says “Resign, or we submit this camera data to VOSA where you will get points on your licence, and no doubt a fine. What do you want to do driver?”
Driver resigns, as they already have 9 points on their licence, and there are still plenty of other places that’ll take you on with that. NO one will take any driver on with a ban in place though.
Driver has successfully been bullied out of the door, constructively dismissed.
Here’s another scam:
Driver starts working at yard, and starts to date one of the girls that works there in admin, say a 20 something Eastern European girl.
Acting Manager who got dumped by same girl a few weeks back, before new driver had even started - builds up evidence on new driver, and then runs a situation similar to the first example above - to get rid of them, and resign.
Driver doesn’t turn up any more, and maybe Girl quits as well. Either way, Acting Manager - has got their revenge by mis-using firm’s facilities to ruin not one - but TWO people’s private lives in this example.
This wouldn’t be possible of course, if we were all peter perfects, never getting tacho infringements, never running late, never going down the wrong street, and never rubbing acting managers up the wrong way with long-winded arguments - all of which someone like me has been guilty of in the past, I make no bones about it.
The trouble with “acting managers” is that most of them are ex-drivers who know all the dodges we mere mortal drivers might partake in.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again though:
“The long-term work atmosphere - becomes a hell when one promotes former Poachers into Gamekeepers - and gives them computers to facillitate their miseries upon any underling they so single out for punishment.”
Union or No Union - doesn’t make any difference, because if there IS a Union these “acting managers” will be of some standing within it, and if there’s NO Union - there won’t be any third parties there to act “watching the watchers” if you will. 
How many other Non-driving businesses - could do with a cull of acting managers at this point?
…Perhaps by the time this “crisis” is all over, they will find themselves being “surplus to requirements” in due course.
I’ve never heard of anyone being prosecuted for “mis-using company computer kit to abuse staff”. In any normal time, - it might be considered “Gross Misconduct” in it’s own right…?
The big flaw in your argument is that there is absolutely no need to “dismiss” an agency driver. They can stop using whoever they want when they want and don’t need to go through any formal process or disciplinary. Yes drivers can be banned for specific reasons but in a lot of cases they can simply not book certain drivers and not have to provide an explanation. This is the reality of life as an agency driver, what you gain on flexibility and rates you lose on security.
