City workers are being urged to confront the emerging practice of being threatened with unpaid leave for refusing to travel to the office during the national lockdown.
The City of London Corporation is calling on staff in the Square Mile to send it an anonymous complaint if they feel bosses are breaking lockdown rules by forcing them to take unpaid leave if they insist on working from home.
Current lockdown rules maintain that no-one should be travelling to an office unless it is “absolutely necessary,” with the default being that they work from home. But reports have emerged that some employers are requesting staff to come in, and requiring they take unpaid leave if they do not.
Earlier this week, it emerged that the chief executive of infrastructure provider Infrastrata had sent emails to staff threatening them with unpaid leave if they did not come to the office during the November lockdown.
Keith Bottomley, chair of the City’s port health environment committee, said: “If an employer is pressurising staff to go into work when they don’t need to, we’re urging them to speak out.”
This week business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng also urged employers to take “every possible step” to allow their staff to work from home.