Fair Furlough Now! Fight for Furlough: everyone is essential

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.

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 using this quick tool.

Supporters

These are the MPs and Peers who have joined our coalition to #FightForFurlough as of 10/2/21

Ian Mearns
Tahir Ali
Apsana Begum
Grahame Morris
Justin Madders
Kate Osbourne
John McDonnell
Claudia Webbe
Kate Osamor
Diane Abbott
Jon Trickett
Ian Lavery
Nadia Whittome
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
Beth Winter
Jeremy Corbyn
Paula Barker
Shami Chakrabarti
John Hendy QC
Katy Clark
Pauline Bryan
Rebecca Long Bailey
Richard Burgon
Kim Johnson
Dan Carden
Christine Blower