Matches suspended

[Tamworthram]

15 minutes ago, Carnero said:

It might be an unpopular view, but i'm sorry, if the authorities say that it's safe to play behind closed doors and the players then refuse to play, then they shouldn't receive their wages. Can't have it all ways.

I agree. Same applies to everyone else working. Surely you’re in breach of contract if you decide not to go to work when the authorities say it’s safe and your business reopens. You might well feel uncomfortable, especially if you need to use public transport and I would sympathise but, I guess, you can’t have individuals making such decisions, against the medical advice the authorities are basing their decision on, themselves. Maybe very tough but I can’t see an alternative.

[Millenniumram]

19 minutes ago, Carnero said:

It might be an unpopular view, but i'm sorry, if the authorities say that it's safe to play behind closed doors and the players then refuse to play, then they shouldn't receive their wages. Can't have it all ways.

I was thinking about this when all the comments from the likes of Aguero about being scared came out. It sounds harsh, but it seems in poor taste to me footballers coming out and complaining. I get that they’ll be nervous - we’re all scared about everything at the moment - but there’s essential workers out there who are working without much protection, and potentially endangering themselves to make sure we can all continue to live our lives. All footballers are being asked to do is play a game in a stadium where every single person inside will have tested negative before the game starts. That seems a lot safer to me than the working situation of many others out there - most of whom haven’t been on the news saying how scared they are, despite the fact that they have every reason to be so.

[ThePrisoner]

9 minutes ago, Millenniumram said:

All footballers are being asked to do is play a game in a stadium where every single person inside will have tested negative before the game starts.

But what if they contract it after testing negative? Are they going to be tested immediately before being let in? I'm not so sure the turnaround is so quick.

[Millenniumram]

17 minutes ago, ThePrisoner said:

But what if they contract it after testing negative? Are they going to be tested immediately before being let in? I'm not so sure the turnaround is so quick.

I’m not a medical expert, nor have I really been keeping up with news on tests beyond the headlines so I can’t say for sure - but I thought there were tests that gave results within ten minutes? If so, surely that’s what they’ll be using at football games and they’ll probably test an hour before kick off, so there’s no chance of anyone contracting it before the game starts.

[TramRam]

51 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

I agree. Same applies to everyone else working. Surely you’re in breach of contract if you decide not to go to work when the authorities say it’s safe and your business reopens. You might well feel uncomfortable, especially if you need to use public transport and I would sympathise but, I guess, you can’t have individuals making such decisions, against the medical advice the authorities are basing their decision on, themselves. Maybe very tough but I can’t see an alternative.

Could be, Might not be, Contracts are private as we know, All manner of things are put into them to suit each party, The agent will win either way tho ?

 

I'd guess we all know this is money driven, There only needs to be one player who proves positive after testing then the whole pyramid falls down, But, Having been a Senior Union Rep I'd want to talk to my members representitives, If all is given the OK, Then fine, I'd doubt that would be the case tho, So, The Players Union in Gordon Taylor would have to explore through their medical personel to give the all clear, It will be interesting to see what happens in Germany after 3 Cologne players were found to have the virus.

[Tamworthram]

10 minutes ago, TramRam said:

Could be, Might not be, Contracts are private as we know, All manner of things are put into them to suit each party, The agent will win either way tho ?

 

I'd guess we all know this is money driven, There only needs to be one player who proves positive after testing then the whole pyramid falls down, But, Having been a Senior Union Rep I'd want to talk to my members representitives, If all is given the OK, Then fine, I'd doubt that would be the case tho, So, The Players Union in Gordon Taylor would have to explore through their medical personel to give the all clear, It will be interesting to see what happens in Germany after 3 Cologne players were found to have the virus.

Yep. I actually meant your average worker refusing to go to work would be breach of contract.

[Wolfie20]

1 hour ago, Carnero said:

It might be an unpopular view, but i'm sorry, if the authorities say that it's safe to play behind closed doors and the players then refuse to play, then they shouldn't receive their wages. Can't have it all ways.

If by 'authorities' you mean the Government then I agree but if you're refering to the football authorities without the go-ahead from Government then no, they're well within their rights to refuse to play. 

[TramRam]

47 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

Yep. I actually meant your average worker refusing to go to work would be breach of contract.

I'd pretty much agree with that, Never in my working life have I seen anything remotely like this, I remember the 3 and 4 day week in the 70s, But This...wow, The ordinary worker unless represented would be forced through financial circumstances to work in most cases, Even those furloughed could be in financial dificulties.

Prem and EFL players I would have thought are financially secure so could in theory stick 2 fingers up to those who say alls OK.

[Tyler Durden]

2 hours ago, Tamworthram said:

I agree. Same applies to everyone else working. Surely you’re in breach of contract if you decide not to go to work when the authorities say it’s safe and your business reopens. You might well feel uncomfortable, especially if you need to use public transport and I would sympathise but, I guess, you can’t have individuals making such decisions, against the medical advice the authorities are basing their decision on, themselves. Maybe very tough but I can’t see an alternative.

It's not so cut and dried. If an employee refused to go to work due to health or medical concerns then they would be quite within their right to raise a formal grievance outlining their concerns but still stay away from work without prejudice on full pay until the company then investigated and responded to their grievance. If the company then found afterwards that there was no reasonable reason for them to stay away from work and their allegations were unfounded then if the person still stayed away from work they would fall under the companies AWOL procedure and in some cases depending on the companies sick pay scheme may still be entitled to full pay anyway. The person would then have to be progressed through the absence management scheme.

So bottom line is you can't just stop people's pay for refusing to come to work unless you welcome a stream of employment litigation

[Carnero]

1 hour ago, Wolfie20 said:

If by 'authorities' you mean the Government

Yes.

[Mckram]

1 hour ago, Millenniumram said:

I’m not a medical expert, nor have I really been keeping up with news on tests beyond the headlines so I can’t say for sure - but I thought there were tests that gave results within ten minutes? If so, surely that’s what they’ll be using at football games and they’ll probably test an hour before kick off, so there’s no chance of anyone contracting it before the game starts.

My Mrs has been randomly selected by the NHS for a home test, once it’s picked up by courier it says 2-3 days to receive your results.

I’d imagine they can test it within minutes though if it’s a priority case, although I guess footballers probably aren’t priority unless clubs are chucking lots of money at it. 

[Tyler Durden]

1 hour ago, Tamworthram said:

Yep. I actually meant your average worker refusing to go to work would be breach of contract.

This isn't true either see reply as above 

[Tamworthram]

8 minutes ago, Tyler Durden said:

This isn't true either see reply as above 

Does every employee have the right to say that despite official/medical advice they’re not coming to work because they don’t feel it’s safe? Doesn’t sound right to me.

Obviously, if they have specific medical or health issues that’s a different story but can a healthy individual refuse to go to work because they personally don’t think it’s safe? I’d be surprised if that is true but, quite happy to be proved wrong.

OK, so the process may get delayed if they raised a grievance but, the principle I was suggesting is still valid I believe.

[Millenniumram]

4 minutes ago, Mckram said:

My Mrs has been randomly selected by the NHS for a home test, once it’s picked up by courier it says 2-3 days to receive your results.

I’d imagine they can test it within minutes though if it’s a priority case, although I guess footballers probably aren’t priority unless clubs are chucking lots of money at it. 

I imagine there’s all sorts of different tests out there to be fair, of varying speed and accuracy. I suppose a home test would always take longer because it needs to get back to a medical expert of some sort to analyse the results. I guess there will be a doctor at each football match conducting the tests, so things will probably be faster there.

[TramRam]

5 minutes ago, Tyler Durden said:

This isn't true either see reply as above 

Now you're getting into the Politics of representation, Length of service, How many employees there are..1,2,3 the person who works in a small establishment, Not all have the benefit of employer/employee rights.

[Tyler Durden]

7 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

I’m no expert but I’m not sure you’re entirely correct. Does every employee have the right to say that despite official/medical advice they’re not coming to work because they don’t feel it’s safe? Doesn’t sound right to me.

Obviously, if they have specific medical or health issues that’s a different story but can a healthy individual refuse to go to work because they personally don’t think it’s safe? I’d be surprised if that is true but, quite happy to be proved wrong.

If you map the process out to its conclusion..... employee would raise a grievance company would investigate. In this time period employee would be off work on full pay and benefits without prejudice. If company found against employee and then still stayed away from work then possible scenario would be that employee went to GP to get sick note for stress so would fall under absence management policy. Some companies offer very enhanced sick pay schemes sometimes 6 months full pay. Some don't. In any event employee would still be entitled to company sick pay benefits when they were off from work.

I would hazard that if it got into the national press that a company fired someone for having concerns about social distancing at their workplace and didn't want to come into work because of this then this would be extremely poor publicity and most sensible businesses would want to avoid the negativity like the plague.

[Tyler Durden]

9 minutes ago, TramRam said:

Now you're getting into the Politics of representation, Length of service, How many employees there are..1,2,3 the person who works in a small establishment, Not all have the benefit of employer/employee rights.

Yes the devil is always in the detail and is impossible to broadbrush a one size fits scenario

Just pointing out that you just can't sack someone arbitrarily for not coming into work for either health/welfare or health and safety concerns without inviting some form of legal recourse. 

[Tamworthram]

32 minutes ago, Tyler Durden said:

If you map the process out to its conclusion..... employee would raise a grievance company would investigate. In this time period employee would be off work on full pay and benefits without prejudice. If company found against employee and then still stayed away from work then possible scenario would be that employee went to GP to get sick note for stress so would fall under absence management policy. Some companies offer very enhanced sick pay schemes sometimes 6 months full pay. Some don't. In any event employee would still be entitled to company sick pay benefits when they were off from work.

I would hazard that if it got into the national press that a company fired someone for having concerns about social distancing at their workplace and didn't want to come into work because of this then this would be extremely poor publicity and most sensible businesses would want to avoid the negativity like the plague.

Can't argue with that but, would you concede that, I wasn't incorrect after all? whilst employers would wish to avoid it and there may be a lengthy process to go through, failure to go to work  because an individual feels it's not safe (despite official, scientific and medical advice) may well constitute breach of contract which, is what I said. 

[Tyler Durden]

58 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

Can't argue with that but, would you concede that, I wasn't incorrect after all? whilst employers would wish to avoid it and there may be a lengthy process to go through, failure to go to work  because an individual feels it's not safe (despite official, scientific and medical advice) may well constitute breach of contract which, is what I said. 

If the employer can't guarantee the safety and well-being of an employee under the HASAWA 1974 and the employee then stays away from work then the employer is in breach of contract and the employee would be entitled to full pay until the employer could either guarantee the safety of that individual or found then alternate work which didn't breach the legal rights of that employee

I'm not trying to be obstructive the answer isn't a simple yes no one as many employment tribunals will testify to.

[Tamworthram]

1 minute ago, Tyler Durden said:

If the employer can't guarantee the safety and well-being of an employee under the HASAWA 1974 and the employee then stays away from work then the employer is in breach of contract and the employee would be entitled to full pay until the employer could either guarantee the safety of that individual or found then alternate work which didn't breach the legal rights of that employee

I'm not trying to be obstructive the answer isn't a simple yes no one as many employment tribunals will testify to.

I understand all that but surely if official/medical/scientific advise is that it's safe to return to work then the employer has met the requirements of the regulations. Obviously if the authorities insist on certain working conditions and the employer doesn't comply then the employee would be right to refuse to work (the employer may even be at risk of prosecution).

I accept it's not always black and white but, once again,  would you agree, with the general principle that if it is declared safe to go back to work (and, OK the employer has initiated any required changes to working conditions) it could well be breach of contract to still refuse to go back to work? 

What more could the employer do?