Hospitality staff told not to use Protect app
Hospitalit y staff are b eing asked to put customers and themselves at risk as businesses tell employees not to download the Covid-19 exposure app, the Scottish Greens have claimed.
Co -leader of the S cottish G r e e n s , P a t r i c k H a r v i e , brought up the issue during Topical Questions at Holyrood yesterda and said he had been contacted by several people working in “wellknown high street” businesses about the practice.
He said workers have been told to not download the Protect.scotland app on to their phones or have been asked to keep their phones turned off while on shift, meaning the app will not work.
Mr Har vie said staff had also been told not to self-isolate if they have b een told they are a contact of a positive Covid-19 case and that any absence will be treated as unauthorised and would be unpaid.
Fergus Ewing, the tourism minister, said he hoped the cases b eing sp oken ab out
we r e t h e “exc e p t i o n” a n d n o t t h e r u l e . H e b e l i e ve s business leaders are taking C o v i d -1 9 r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s “extremely seriously”.
He s a i d : “A s a ma t t e r o f general principle, of course employers have an absolute dut y to cater for the safet y of their staff and their customers, of course they do. Nobody could conceivably disagree with that and everybody must recognise that that is a fundamental duty.
"Mr H a r v i e h a s n’t a c t u - a l l y m e n t i o n e d a n y s p e - c i f i c e x a m p l e . I f h e h a s a n y s p e c i f i c e x a m p l e s , t h e n o f c o u r s e I w i l l consider those.”