IWGB launches #FairFurloughNow campaign to protect public health and precarious workers as redundancies rise again

• IWGB Cleaners & Facilities Branch leads call on Government to extend the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme indefinitely and make compliance compulsory for employers
• The #FairFurloughNow campaign, backed by 30 MPs, highlights how precarious migrant workers are being hit hardest by redundancy and furlough denial by employers.
• Remote rally will livestream tomorrow at 18.00, Wednesday 17 February.

Tuesday 16 February 2021 - The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) demands indefinite and mandatory furlough for workers facing redundancies under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. The union’s Cleaners and Facilities Branch launched the #FairFurloughNow campaign. Already 30 MPs have signed on to support this a vital lifeline for thousands of workers and families.

At 18.00 on Wednesday 17 February, the IWGB will host an online rally, featuring workers from the branch who have been affected by the failures of the furlough scheme. Speakers include Nadia Whittome MP, Lucila Granada and CEO at Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX) as well as representatives from the IWGB and workers who will speak out about their experiences.

The IWGB warns that because the scheme is not being properly enforced, many workers who should have been placed on furlough have instead been forced to break lockdown and attend work in non-essential buildings such as UCL. Meanwhile, the Government’s failure to make the furlough scheme indefinite has resulted in a cycle of uncertainty and waves of avoidable mass redundancies. The union has seen two unprecedented spikes in redundancy cases linked to the delayed extension of the furlough scheme, with a third anticipated immanently unless the Government acts now. As offices remain shut, companies have already started making cleaners redundant in anticipation of the furlough scheme ending in April.

Alex Marshall, President (IWGB) says: “The government’s failure to enforce and extend furlough isn’t just costing jobs and destroying lives - it’s putting public health at risk. We’re dealing with yet another tidal wave of cases relating to mass redundancies and the unjustifiable denial of furlough by companies who can certainly afford it. And yet again, of course, it is precarious BAME and migrant workers who are being hardest hit.”

Wilson Ayala, Cleaners and Facilities Branch Chair, said: “We are precarious workers, who are in the frontline exposing ourselves to the virus. We do not have effective and clear support from the government to face this crisis. We are largely migrant workers who perform some of the jobs that have been the most affected by the pandemic. We need the government to guarantee that our sector avoids continuing dismissals affecting workers and their livelihoods.”

Jesus Jimenez, Cleaners and Facilities Branch Secretary, said: “If the furlough is set to end only when the pandemic is under control, that transition period will be fatal for workers, and a failure on the part of the government. Maintaining furlough in an indefinite manner means guaranteeing that the scheme is not wasted. Cleaners and all precarious workers form an important part of the national economy but have been mistreated in the measures taken by the government. Everyone is essential in the fight against Covid-19.”

-ENDS-

For more information, contact press@iwgb.co.uk

TAKE ACTION:

1. Follow the IWGB Cleaners and Facilities branch on social media and share our campaign online. (Facebook, Twitter)

2. Sign the Change.org petition to show your support for extension of the furlough scheme.

3. Write to your MP asking them to join our Fight For Furlough coalition via ActionNetwork.

We are mothers. We are parents. We are daughters and sons who cannot support our families anymore, who are relying on Universal Credit and other benefits, because the furlough scheme is ending. We have to endure the fact that the government prefers to push us further into poverty rather than maintain our employment through the support scheme supposedly created to protect us.

We demand a furlough scheme that is indefinite and compulsory.

Throughout the pandemic, essential workers from the cleaning sector have been forgotten by the UK Government through its flawed implementation of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS, or ‘furlough’). The extensions of the furlough scheme for short periods of time and the uncertainty sowed by its application as a discretionary, rather than obligatory, scheme have been a series of great mistakes. These mistakes have resulted in many job losses - the very thing furlough is intended to avoid.

We have been living the reality created by these mistakes.

As cleaners, we are amongst the worst affected workers by the pandemic. As offices remain shut, companies have already started making us redundant in anticipation of the furlough scheme ending in April. The government needs to act now.

Our demands for the UK Government

1. Extend the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme indefinitely. Extending furlough means extending a vital lifeline for thousands of workers like us and our families, offering continued job protection while Covid-19 is curbed and the economy brought back to full capacity.
   “If furlough is set to end before full economic recovery and return to normality, the transition period will be fatal for workers and a failure for the government’s plan of job retention.”  - Jesus Jimenez, Cleaners and Facilities Branch Secretary
2. Make use of the furlough compulsory for employers. End arbitrary redundancy decisions by employers who refuse to preserve employment through the furlough scheme. Require explicit, fact-based proof that furlough is not viable.