Snow - Can't get to office - Have to take annual leave?

Rowley Birkin QC

Quick one, a friend works in the HSE. Can't make it to work today due to the conditions and all client appointments have been cancelled for the same reason.

Her boss is telling her that she has to take annual leave even though there's nothing to do even if she could make it in.

Is this correct considering the national weather warnings in place?

somesoldiers

that is their policy

cycle4fun

Weather is not too bad, all other countries at our latitude worker in cold weather conditions more efficiently.

Peregrinus

You can't be compelled to take annual leave. You can just forgo a day's pay instead.

Or, if your circumstances permitted, you could turn up for work and claim a day's pay, even though there's nothing to do.

(There's always something to do. You can sort out your files, catch up on paperwork, write that policy/protocol/memo you have been meaning to write, whatever.)

_Brian

Yep, it’s either a day annual leave or day without pay.

punisher5112

Force majeure day....

Samuel T. Cogley

Mr.S wrote: »

Lol what? Presuming OP is based in Dublin.

:rolleyes: Cyclists :pac:

Rowley Birkin QC

I'm in Dublin, she's in Cork. No option other than to drive in. I and my wife are working from home today as our jobs allow us to do this but no option like that in the case of my friend.

Not interested in discussing the severity of the weather / how other countries react, cheers.

knipex

Rowley Birkin QC wrote: »

Quick one, a friend works in the HSE. Can't make it to work today due to the conditions and all client appointments have been cancelled for the same reason.

Her boss is telling her that she has to take annual leave even though there's nothing to do even if she could make it in.

Is this correct considering the national weather warnings in place?

I know one employer that every frosty morning pays 20% of his workforce to stay at home. 3 people in particular are guaranteed 100% not to be able to travel on a frosty morning. Once they hear on the radio that roads are dangerous or potentially dangerous they go back to bed. 2 of them live within 100 yards of his business and ever single employee that does come in drives past their front doors.

He set a precedent 20 years ago when he was flexible and in a particularly bad winter paid people when they couldn't come to work due to bad weather. It was continued and over time invariably became abused..

He had no grounds legally to stop paying the usual culprits but when he tried to stop paying people that stayed at home due to weather he ended up in the labor relations commission and lost..

shar01

punisher5112 wrote: »

Force majeure day....

Force majeure is for unforeseen emergencies

knipex

punisher5112 wrote: »

Force majeure day....

Nope

Force majeure leave is defined in law and does not include weather..

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/leave_and_holidays/types_of_leave_from_work.html

Thephantomsmask

punisher5112 wrote: »

Force majeure day....

Force majeure on the HSE is for sudden illness or bereavement in the family. A colleague had to take annual leave (coming back from a funeral!) when their flight was missed due to all planes leaving being grounded due to unexpected bad weather.

28064212

shar01 wrote: »

Force majeure is for unforeseen emergencies

Unforeseen family emergencies:

An employee shall be entitled to leave with pay from his or her employment, to be known and referred to in this Act as “force majeure leave”, where for urgent family reasons, owing to an injury to or the illness of a person specified in subsection (2), the immediate presence of the employee at the place where the person is, whether at his or her home or elsewhere, is indispensable

Podge_irl

knipex wrote: »

He had no grounds legally to stop paying the usual culprits but when he tried to stop paying people that stayed at home due to weather he ended up in the labor relations commission and lost..

He had no grounds legally to stop paying people who didn't turn up for work?

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/employers-do-not-have-to-pay-you-if-you-miss-work-because-of-ophelia-1.3257440

punisher5112

shar01 wrote: »

Force majeure is for unforeseen emergencies

Correct and they may have a kid or are in charge of someone else's and have nobody else to care for them.

Peregrinus

Podge_irl wrote: »

He had no grounds legally to stop paying people who didn't turn up for work?

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/employers-do-not-have-to-pay-you-if-you-miss-work-because-of-ophelia-1.3257440

In the case knipex mentioned, it seems that a term of the contract allowing employees to get paid leave when certain weather conditions prevailed was established by custom and practice.

This isn't a consideration that would affect the employees of any employer other than the one mentioned in knipex's story and, it seems from his story, it only affects 3 of his employees.

veetwin

Mr.S wrote: »

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

:rolleyes: Cyclists :pac:

Don't get the argument "ah it's fine, bit of snow, easy to get to work!" And just look past the fact that public transport is bits and the roads are a mess.

OP - it's either annual leave or unpaid day. Try and swindle a work from home day if you can, catch up on paperwork, reporting etc.

Don't get this argument at all either. Unless you're 100% reliant on public transport and you're particular route is not running then getting to work in this light snowfall shouldn't be a major issue. Seems the snowflakes in the public sector find it particularly difficult in these conditions.

FWIW I'm a public sector worker who commuted from Dublin to Monaghan this morning without a problem. I just left earlier.

Podge_irl

Peregrinus wrote: »

In the case knipex mentioned, it seems that a term of the contract allowing employees to get paid leave when certain weather conditions prevailed was established by custom and practice.

This isn't a consideration that would affect the employees of any employer other than the one mentioned in knipex's story and, it seems from his story, it only affects 3 of his employees.

I can kind of understand that concept - but if you can start a custom is it not possible to end one by some process? I could understand if they were not paid without warning but if told in advance that it would no longer happen would that not be sufficient?

28064212

punisher5112 wrote: »

Correct and they may have a kid or are in charge of someone else's and have nobody else to care for them.

Which is not grounds for Force Majeure leave:

An employee shall be entitled to leave with pay from his or her employment, to be known and referred to in this Act as “force majeure leave”, where for urgent family reasons, owing to an injury to or the illness of a person specified in subsection (2), the immediate presence of the employee at the place where the person is, whether at his or her home or elsewhere, is indispensable

Peregrinus

Podge_irl wrote: »

I can kind of understand that concept - but if you can start a custom is it not possible to end one by some process? I could understand if they were not paid without warning but if told in advance that it would no longer happen would that not be sufficient?

Well, by knipex's account he didn't do that. He just stopped paying them for absent days and they took him to the Labour Court.

Having varied the contract to grant paid bad weather leave, you can vary it again, but (like all variations) this requires agreement. The canny way to do this would be to address it along with a number of other issues, and trade the end of paid bad weather leave for some improvements or pay increases that you were minded to make anyway.

It sounds as though the employer was badly advised when he introduced this perk, and badly advised when he tried to withdraw it, to be honest.

Rowley Birkin QC

HSE have released a statement: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/health-staff-may-have-to-use-leave-to-cover-weather-absences-1.3408053

jimmycrackcorm

Rowley Birkin QC wrote: »

Quick one, a friend works in the HSE. Can't make it to work today due to the conditions and all client appointments have been cancelled for the same reason.

Her boss is telling her that she has to take annual leave even though there's nothing to do even if she could make it in.

Is this correct considering the national weather warnings in place?

The Mrs is a nurse in the HSE. I wonder does your friend recommend that she and her colleagues do the same?

Rowley Birkin QC

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

The Mrs is a nurse in the HSE. I wonder does your friend recommend that she and her colleagues do the same?

Not sure that I follow your question?

Rowley Birkin QC

Mr.S wrote: »

I think they are suggesting would people expect Nurses take the day off because of the snow.

Ah. In that case, I'm not really interested in getting into it.

knipex

Peregrinus wrote: »

In the case knipex mentioned, it seems that a term of the contract allowing employees to get paid leave when certain weather conditions prevailed was established by custom and practice.

This isn't a consideration that would affect the employees of any employer other than the one mentioned in knipex's story and, it seems from his story, it only affects 3 of his employees.

Close. As he paid people who couldn't travel due to weather in the past, it became custom and practice and in effect and unwritten but accepted part of their contract.

It affected all his employees, when a small number started to take advantage he tried to end the practice but ended up with a union taking him to the employment relations..

Since then people are less inclined to put in the effort to attend work and hence on a bad morning approx 20% of his workforce don't show up.. 3 in particular (the ones I mentioned) take the absolute mick but it affect all (or at least it did, not sure of the more recent situation) his employees.

That's why employers don't want to be flexible on things like this. Its so easy to set a precedent which becomes custom and practice and essentially part of the contract..

JohnnyBrown

Anyone have any idea what the situation is for a certain major supermarket whose name rhymes with Fun as a plural?
I live just over 10 km from my branch away, and rely completely on buses to get to them. Thing is, my particular route is going about only one tenth the distance and I've heard all bus routes are cancelled tomorrow. I could walk...but as I said, 10 km. Google Maps says about 2 hrs and that's without them factoring in the snowy conditions.
I have looked it up and legally, my employer don't have to pay no-shows as long as they're open, but I don't know if they're still going to. I don't fancy missing two days worth of pay, potentially three...

splinter65

punisher5112 wrote: »

Force majeure day....

No force majeure applicable in this case.

splinter65

JohnnyBrown wrote: »

Anyone have any idea what the situation is for a certain major supermarket whose name rhymes with Fun as a plural?
I live just over 10 km from my branch away, and rely completely on buses to get to them. Thing is, my particular route is going about only one tenth the distance and I've heard all bus routes are cancelled tomorrow. I could walk...but as I said, 10 km. Google Maps says about 2 hrs and that's without them factoring in the snowy conditions.
I have looked it up and legally, my employer don't have to pay no-shows as long as they're open, but I don't know if they're still going to. I don't fancy missing two days worth of pay, potentially three...

If your place if work is open for business as usual then technically it’s not their problem that you can’t make your way to work.

JohnnyBrown

splinter65 wrote: »

If your place if work is open for business as usual then technically it’s not their problem that you can’t make your way to work.

That's what I said in my last line. I'm aware of the legal issues. I'm looking for information regarding their internal policy. I rang earlier on, and there's been no word on a company wide closure or employee pay from head office. I'm hoping that even if just for good PR, we'll still get paid.

knipex

Podge_irl wrote: »

I can kind of understand that concept - but if you can start a custom is it not possible to end one by some process? I could understand if they were not paid without warning but if told in advance that it would no longer happen would that not be sufficient?

That is how he ended up in trouble.

After a particular period of certain employees taking the mick he called all employees into a room and advised that from now on he woudl no longer be unable to pay anyone who did not show up for work, even if it was weather related.

2 hours later, literally 2 hours later the union knocked on his door and advised that he could no remove the perk without agreement. 3 out of 21 staff were in the union.. They still won.

he then tried to deal with the repeat offenders. 1 morning in particular the usual 3 did not show up for work. There had been a thing on the local radio that morning indicating that footpaths and roads may be slippy.

He rang the two individuals who lived within 100 yards of the building and asked if they were OK. They both gave him the same statement which (I paraphrase) said that the advise over local radio was hat paths and roads were slippy and they felt unqualified to travel into working those conditions.

So he offered, under the circumstances to pick them up. (he was going to drive his own car and collect them). They still felt that it was unsafe and woudl put them in danger He applied additional pressure and within an hour the union were again camped outside his office.

He didn't take advise when he introduced the perk. He didn't see it as a perk. There was exceptional weather and despite their best attempts a number of employees couldn't make it. He was grateful and paid them.

After that if there was bad weather and there were issues with traveling he woudl sign off and pay them. He then found out that 2 of the most persistent "not able to travel" employees actually lived virtually next door. When he pulled out the records and checked back it was obvious that it had become abused...

He did get advise when trying to remove the perk, it was "Your stuck with it.."

He had to try something..

Podge_irl

Fair enough, thanks for the explanation. Seems like an utterly perverse reading of a law but such is life I guess.