Material damage to homes, garages, vehicles or industrial warehouses in the Valencian Community, Murcia, Andalusia and Castile-La Mancha. Added to this is the loss of human lives.
These are the devastating effects of DANA (Isolated High Level Depression) which also caused road closures, flooded streets and interruption of rail service in these areas.
Due to this situation, many people have been forced to stop working. And the question that arises is what happens if the employee cannot get there. Also, is it possible that the company will fire you?
What does the law say?
To answer the question of whether the company can fire the worker if he does not come to work because of the storm, we must refer to what the law says. Thus, article 21 of Law on the prevention of occupational risks states that weather phenomena that cause serious incidents on streets, highways and rail networks pose a risk to the safety of citizens.
For this reason, and in other words, absence from work is justified. In other words: roadblocks, for example, are not the “fault” of the worker, therefore the absence would be accredited and justified.
In addition, the standard also specifies that if there is a risk qualified as “serious and imminent”, the employer has the obligation to inform its staff of the situation.
Likewise, you can take the measures you deem appropriate in this regard and, if necessary, even interrupt business activity. “Workers cannot be forced to resume their activity as long as the danger persists, except in an exception duly justified for safety reasons and determined by regulation,” specifies the aforementioned standard.
Will this have a subsequent impact on workers’ payroll? No, because the law says that workers “cannot suffer any harm arising from the adoption of the measures”.
Furthermore, another text, in this case the Status of workersalso discusses the situation. Thus, in article 47, we speak of justified absence due to force majeure. For example, extreme road risk.
How to justify the absence? At this point, the worker must accumulate all possible evidence which demonstrate the impossibility of carrying out the movement. Evidence that will be very useful if the company ends up sanctioning and firing you. In any case, and if there is no possibility of going to work, the first thing to do is to inform the company.
Other options, depending on the job held, consist of the company suspending work and the worker recovering lost hours later. Or teleworking, if the activity can be carried out remotely.
