Work pay rights

Vicxie

I travelled to Nigeria on March 6 and was due to come back March 22 but on March 19, the airline cancelled our ticket and on March 21st, the nigerian government said it was closing the aiport on March 23. Airline can't fly their plane in since nigeria closed it's airspace and now stuck here until God knows when. I have notified my work and my manager has now said that since i am stuck, my 2 options are "unpaid leave" or "use annual leave for next financial year to cover time off". Surely there must be a better option? I mean, i am not staying here because i want to and if i am stuck here for a month due to this outbreak, i still need to get paid to pay my direct debits but to use all my leave for it at the same time seems a bit unfair to myself. My manager got the information from HR, so, i want to know what my other options might be that HR isnt aware of.

spiro

Ignoring CV19, the same is likely to have happened if this happened at any time. If you take additional time off work most companies will have given you the options your boss has. Given you are legally required to have 4 weeks plus bank holidays off every year I don't know what happens if you don't have 'spare' leave.

Aylesbury_Duck

I'm not sure there are any other options if they are the only ones your employer is prepared to offer.  Have you spoken to them to see if there is work you can be doing for them remotely, even if not for the full period?  That way, you may be able to come to an arrangement such that you get paid but only use your paid leave at a lesser rate, say half of the time in question.

Ultimately though, if you're not there, they're not obliged to pay you indefinitely.