Can a security engineer do callout when furloughed by the employer

[Brian hall]

Hi, can anyone give me the correct answer, my security company is going to Furlough myself and five engineers, but we have been told we still have to go on the call out rota, surely when Furloughed you can not do any type of work for that company ? 

[al-yeti]

2 minutes ago, Brian hall said:

Hi, can anyone give me the correct answer, my security company is going to Furlough myself and five engineers, but we have been told we still have to go on the call out rota, surely when Furloughed you can not do any type of work for that company ? 

Yes no work no call out

[james.wilson]

When furloughed no you cannot do any work for the company that has furloughed you.

[MrHappy]

2 minutes ago, Brian hall said:

Hi, can anyone give me the correct answer, my security company is going to Furlough myself and five engineers, but we have been told we still have to go on the call out rota, surely when Furloughed you can not do any type of work for that company ? 

 

As I understand it you should not work whilst furlough'd

 

However no call-out might mean no customers, which might in turn mean no job to come back too?

 

 

[Amps]

Think the company would be better off arranging some kind of emergency shift system.

[norman]

"Importantly, this suggests that the scheme does not cover employees who have agreed to work reduced hours." 

 

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/economy-business/work-incomes/coronavirus-job-retention-scheme-how-will-it-fit-with-employment-law/

[sixwheeledbeast]

If you are designated as a furloughed worker to HMRC as part of CJR. Yes I understand it that you should stop all work.

In essence you have been asked to stop working and furloughed as an alternative to redundancy, so reduced hours or on call are off the table for these employees.

 

[james.wilson]

thats the difficult bit for our sector. Office staff can be but the engineers have to have reduced hours

[PeterJames]

Hi Brian 

 

Welcome to the forum 

 

The rules are that you should not be working, however, our business is quite different from any other type of business in the respect that we are contracted to customers to respond. This means if we do not respond we are in breach of that contract and they will probably go to a company that will respond, and there will be plenty of those out there. So if we employ engineers that are furloughed we are breaking the law, but if we furlough the engineers and ignore the contracted customers there may not be a job for all the engineers to come back to because contract will be lost. So the employer either has to pay the wages with very little coming in, and trust me the money will run out eventually. He needs more than one engineer working because of working hour laws, that would mean he could not make up the 100% wage to the ones he has furloughed.

 

The other alternative is that he continues to employ everyone on reduced hours and with six engineers  you would be lucky if you got  two or three days a week and you will end up with 40/50% of your current wage max.

 

Personally I think the government have just tried to cover themselves, they dont want people claiming but just working less hours because there is less work about . They could not know how every industry works, there are millions of scenarios that are different. 

 

Your employer may not be aware of the rules, if you are unhappy about the situation you need to speak with your employer and let him know he is breaking the law.

 

Questions I would yourself ask are    

Is the employer paying you 100% or just the 80% the government is offering. 

Do you like your employer is he fair and does he look after everyone, especially times like these when he already has enough shz to worry about  

Do you feel that you are part of a team and that you do not want to let anyone down.

 

 

[PeterJames]

I should state if yes to those three then you need to come to a legal arrangement with everyone the other 5 engineers that everyone can afford