Your Employment Rights in bad weather
With the current bad weather set to continue for the next few days employees may find themselves in the quandary of whether to try to get to work due to disrupted road and rail travel. Don’t automatically think that your employer will pay you for staying at home.
Joanne Lezemore Senior Solicitor says that "as an employee you are obliged to attend the office therefore, the onus is on you to get to work and technically this applies in adverse weather conditions".
So if your employer opens the work place and you cannot make it in, then they have no obligation to pay you for the days that you do not attend the office. That is unless your contract of employment makes any specific conditions contrary to their contract of employment.
Difficulties for the employer could arise if there is no contractual right for the employer to deduct their pay and such as the deduction could be challenged. However, the employer could argue that it is not a deduction but simply a case that no pay was due on that date due to an unauthorised absence.