Arcadia Group which has been lambasted over its “wholesale” leveraging of the furlough scheme has also attracted flak for trying to base the redundancy settlements for certain of its head office staff on the rates of pay they received during the furlough period. It has now agreed, following intervention from Unite, that it will make those redundancy payments on the lawfully required full salary basis. The business has issued an apology to affected staff and said in an announcement:
“We recently implemented a policy for those employees who are working their notice on furlough to receive their furlough pay instead of their full pay. We got this decision wrong and the board has today amended this policy to ensure all affected employees will receive their full pay.”
Arcadia Group has been engaged in determining the future for up to 500 of its head office staff in the wake of lockdown and its impact on the already challenged retailer.
Unite regional officer Debbie McSweeney said: “We understand that it is almost without precedent for Arcadia to apologise for such behaviour towards employees – but this situation should never have been allowed to happen in the first place by Sir Philip Green, one of the country’s richest men.
“This puts down a strong marker to other employers who may be thinking of taking advantage of the government’s furlough scheme – Unite is on high alert for such cases and how they may adversely affect our members.”
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