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raptorman

Thought I would start a thread where people like mysel(airport workers) could
come to chat about the ongoing volcano disruption.

I work at BFS and we are currently having to use our holiday entitlement
or stay home without pay:( In realistic terms how long can some of the
airport service companies stay afloat?

gavinski102

Hello Raptorman,

I to work at a UK airport and myself and all other colleagues are having the same problem, we are being sent home unpaid or use annual leave up but we are willing to work. Not quite sure what to do in terms of them not paying us due to the volcano disruptions, I was under the impression that if you clocked in at work an employer had to pay you until you clocked out if it was part of your contracted hours, we have said we will stay but our employers have said that they will not pay us if we stay. I have had a look on citezens bureau advice and it states that "All employees are entitled to be paid for the work they have done. They are also entitled to be paid if they are ready and willing to work but their employer has not provided them with any work to do, unless your employment contract says otherwise" - I cant find my contract to see if it says otherwise.
Do we have to go through a tribunal or something as far as I am and all my colleagues are concerned this is unfair in relation to the Employment Rights Act

jimbms

I think you may find that a company can lay people off on a temporary basis if they reason they cannot work is due to an event the employer has no control over. i.e. this ash, storm damage, police closing the factory due to civil unrest etc. Think about it the other way if an employer was forced to pay people for doing nothing then they would soon go bust and you would have no job at all. A business is there to make a profit and can only survive and ensure safe employment for it's employees by doing so.

crackerberry

I was wondering how airport workers were affected myself. It seems very harsh to make people use leave or be unpaid and I'm thinking back to the recent bad winter and "snow leave" issues from that too.

jimbms

crackerberry wrote: »

I was wondering how airport workers were affected myself. It seems very harsh to make people use leave or be unpaid and I'm thinking back to the recent bad winter and "snow leave" issues from that too.

Even harsher if the company goes bust because everyone wants paying and no money is coming in.

gavinski102

Well if airport workers were to be laid-off then at least they would get something in the form of statutory guarantee pay for up to five days, but as it stands no one is getting paid.

The other way to look at it is that airlines are having to refund people's flights and cover expenses incurred for them but employees are not getting paid, is there not some sort of insurance to cover this?

The airlines have contractual agreements with other suppliers at airports i.e. ground handling and catering company's, these are not paid day by day, so can an airline say when it comes to paying the supplying company's say that were not paying you because we did not use the service which they would have requested when the agreement was put in place between the supplying company and airline, does this mean that the airlines are not paying the airport tax to the airports as the passengers are not actually flying out?

It all seems a big mess and from what I can see the only people who are loosing out financially are the people who actually work at airports (and the airlines), not people flying from them.