Teachers warned to avoid holiday quarantine risk or they could lose pay - Richard Fox quoted in The Daily Telegraph

Richard Fox, Partner in our Employment Law team, was quoted in The Daily Telegraph on 28 July 2020. Richard was commenting on the news that the re-introduction of a 14-day quarantine period for arrivals from Spain could cause disputes between employers and affected employees over pay and leave.  Richard highlights the gap in protection for employees and the negative impact on employers who cannot prevent employees from ignoring travel advice.
 

Richard said that in cases where impacted employees could not work from home, "nobody wins".

For employees, there is no entitlement to statutory sick pay or any other form of reimbursement for lost wages as a result of quarantine. They are reliant on the goodwill of their employers to grant them additional annual leave or unpaid leave. Employees who lose their jobs due to quarantine are also only able to take action for unfair dismissal  if they have been at their company for two years or more.

As for the employers, Richard said:

It is difficult for employers as it is not as if the holiday is zero risk, there was always the possibility that you could have quarantine imposed if there was an outbreak."

I can see some employers wanting to encourage employees to remain in the UK.”

Further information

Should you have an queries regarding the issues raised in this blog please contact Richard or any member of  our employment team.

About the author

Richard acts for corporates, organisations and senior individuals in relation to employment matters of all kinds.  These include confidentiality and restrictive covenants, executive pay, bonus and severance arrangements, unfair dismissal, discrimination, whistleblowing and redundancy programmes.  He is frequently asked to advise in situations involving allegations of sexual misconduct in the workplace following the rise of the #MeToo movement, and the cases that have followed.

Richard is a well known commentator on employment law issues, appearing often in the Press (The Times, The Financial Times, People Management, HR Magazine, Personnel Today etc) and on TV/ Radio (BBC, ITV, Sky and Radio 4).