Furlough being underpaid?

Hi all,

I have a family member who works in sales, and gets a significant portion of their wage from commission. Their basic pay is close to minimum wage. The commission is compulsory and is written into their employment contract.

During the first furlough scheme, said family member was furloughed and received 80% of their basic wage + 80% of typical commission. After a while, the company changed this to just 80% of the basic wage, citing that they thought it was “unfair that some salespeople (skeleton staff) who were chosen not to be furloughed, earned less than those staying at home”. First of all, I am not sure if they are allowed to do this. Secondly, this choice of the company meant that my family member was earning 80% of close to minimum wage and struggled to make ends meet. It makes me very angry because this was a “choice” they made without consulting the people it would affect beforehand.

Now my family member has been furloughed again, and this time around the company have stated that everyone will get 80% of their basic wage. Apparently, despite all the advice online saying that commission can be claimed, they are saying to me that this not the case. I wrote to the company on my family member’s behalf and received quite a defensive email stating that I am wrong and do not understand the system.

I appreciate you can’t offer proper advice without seeing all details, but what are your opinions of this? Something doesn’t seem right to me. Without going all HMRC on them, how can I check what my family member is entitled to? Citizens Advice?

I also appreciate my family member is lucky to have a job at all in the current climate, furloughed or otherwise, and do not wish to offend anyone who has been laid off. If that is the case, I’m sorry and this post probably sounds very frivolous.

Cheers,

R

Seems pretty straightforward…

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/steps-to-take-before-calculating-your-claim-using-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme#include

Non-discretionary payments
When you’re working out if a payment is non-discretionary, only include payments which you have a contractual obligation to pay and to which your employee has an enforceable right.

When variable payments are specified in a contract and those payments are always made, then those payments may become non-discretionary. If that is the case, they should be included when calculating 80% of your employees’ wages.

Thanks for the link… Indeed, it does seem very straightforward…