Rights about snow and getting to work

nicolascowen

Just done some research on staff rights regarding work and snow and found out the following:
The Trades Union Congress says “While you should make every reasonable effort to get into work, you should not attempt to travel if it is not safe. With large parts of the UK forecast to be under snow and icethat could stretch to February, we urge employers to adopt a flexible attitude to staff attendance and where possible allow employees to work from home. ”
As the arctic conditions are expected to again spread across the UK with forecasters warning of this lasting until February, hundreds of schools will close, working parents have the added problem of what to do with their children even if they can make it into work. If employees have internet, e-mail and phones at home, the most sensible solution for employers is to allow them to work there during snowy periods.
Employer responsibility
If bad weather is forecast, your employer should be in contact to advise what you should do about getting into work. If you are in work when it starts to snow, your employer should make sure you do not get trapped or are put at risk if the weather gets worse.
Your responsibility
If you are unable to get into work, you should let your boss know. If you believe that weather conditions or transport problems make it impossible for you to get to work, contact your line manager as soon as possible to tell him about the problem. There is no legal right to be paid if you do not come in to work, but many companies have ‘bad weather’ policies so that employees who are kept away from work are still paid. Your company may not have one, but it seems unfair to dock your wages or make you take holiday if you have been kept away through no fault of your own.
If your boss insists on penalising you and colleagues who did not make it in, you should try to reason with him, pointing out that many other employers have ‘bad weather’ policies, that his approach will only cause unnecessary resentment among staff and that it could be easily rectified by allowing people to work from home.

Hope this helps

tizerbelle

While I understand your reason for posting I think there are some major flaws in the argument.

nicolascowen wrote: »

it seems unfair to dock your wages or make you take holiday if you have been kept away through no fault of your own.

It's not your employer's fault either. Why should they pay you for not working?

nicolascowen wrote: »

If your boss insists on penalising you and colleagues who did not make it in, you should try to reason with him, pointing out that many other employers have ‘bad weather’ policies, that his approach will only cause unnecessary resentment among staff and that it could be easily rectified by allowing people to work from home.

If you don't get to work and are not paid, you are not being penalised. You are simply not being paid for work you didn't do.

What about the resentment from employees who make it in to work when they find out that those that don't get to work get paid?

Many, many jobs can't be done from home either - order processors; waitressing; retail assistants; production lines; call centres; bank branch staff; etc etc.

Simply having internet; email and phones at home doesn't mean you can work from home either. Presumably to access the systems you need to work, you will need to access the company network, these are naturally security protected and usually require specific software/hardware on the connecting pc to be able to access the network. Many employers IT systems won't be run in a manner where you can simply connect to the system through the internet, you'll require a VPN or something installing on the connecting pc, presuming your employer is even that advanced.