Stockport based legal company SAS Daniels have issued an Employment Law Alert – “Are you prepared for the bad weather this winter”?
With the extreme weather conditions over the last few years and more recently high winds and flooding, SAS Daniels are seeing an increasing number of enquiries with regards to whether or not employers are obliged to pay their employees who are unable to make it into or back to work.
One of the basic principles of an employment relationship is
that an employer is under a duty to provide an employee with
work and an employee is under a duty to perform the work, but
what do you do when the weather gets in the way?
Where the weather prevents an employee attending work
If an employee cannot make it to work because of the weather, they are not entitled to be paid, provided there is nothing to the contrary in the employment contract/handbook. In addition, if the employer’s custom and practice in previous years has been to pay, this could also be relevant.
Failing to attend work due to the weather preventing an employee’s attendance would mean that a wage/salary has not been earned for that day and therefore there is no wage due for that day. Consequently, the non payment of such would not be an unlawful deduction from wages.
Where the weather has led the employer to close the workplace
In this situation, it is the employer that is deciding to close the premises and thereby cannot comply with the contractual obligation to provide the employees with work.
Employees who are ready and willing to work must be paid. The situation may be more complicated if the premises are closed by the employer but the employee would not have been able to make it into work anyway. In these circumstances employees should be paid.
The only way for an employer to avoid payment would be to …..
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For more information on employment issues please contact a member of the SAS Daniels employment team on 0161 475 7670.