France quarantine rules: employment law commentary

The government announced last night that UK quarantine measures will apply to France from 04:00 BST on Saturday 15^th August. People arriving from France, as well the Netherlands, Monaco, Malta, Turks and Caicos, and Aruba, will have to comply with the 14-day rule (BBC News).

In response, Sarah Chilton, Employment Law Partner at CM Murray, said:

“The extension of mandatory 14-day quarantine to France, Malta and the Netherlands is going to cause further disruption for employees and employers when workers are unable to return to work due to the requirement to quarantine, unless they can work from home.

Employees rights to be paid during a period of quarantine are limited, with no entitlement to statutory sick pay, and therefore it will be up to employers whether the employees are paid or not. Many employers will not, and may simply not be in a position do to so. We are also concerned that this will encourage employers and employees not to comply with the rules, which has a significant and wider public health impact.

We would advise affected employees and employers to discuss the issue as soon as possible, to understand how the period of quarantine will be treated. It is possible to agree that it is paid annual leave or unpaid authorised leave. It has been suggested that some employees could be disciplined if they do not attend work. Any disciplinary action or dismissal must be reasonable, and where there is a more reasonable alternative, i.e. unpaid leave, such sanctions are likely to be unreasonable and therefore unfair. There is a risk for employees with less than 2 years’ service, who may be vulnerable to dismissal, and even though that dismissal may be unfair, employees need 2 years’ service to gain unfair dismissal rights so would be unlikely to have any redress. Those employees would have to explore whether they have any other protection, which is likely to be very limited, and complicated, if it exists for them at all.”