Companies did not cause the winter’s snowfall, so why must they pay the wages of people who could not get into work – nevermind those who chose not to come in?  Business is the paymaster of first and last resort.

This time it is weather. Next time it may be strikes or terrorist scares or simply a flu epidemic. But while the workers stay at home, they still expect to receive their salary. The crisis may not have been their fault, but it certainly wasn’t caused by their employer either, yet the bill lands with the latter.

Such matters do not worry the public sector that should have gritted the roads or cleared the rails or who halt all London buses or close schools, forcing willing workers to stay at home to mind their children. Town halls not longer wait for staff to phone it to say they cannot come to work – they phone the staff and tell them not to come in.

Perhaps council work can wait but for the private sector, losing a day is to lose production, orders and cashflow. Each day lost is 0.4 per cent of annual output – which on a national scale is enough to tip the economy into recession.

The readiness to close schools and infrastructure – not because it snows but in case it snows – reinforces the idea that work and responsibility to the employer does not matter. No wonder people throw sickies.

The employer-must-pay principle runs wide. Dentist and doctor appointments come out of the employer’s time, not the employee’s; people not only take off days when they are ill but when their family is ill.

Employers are largely to blame for not addressing these issues, arguing that turning a blind eye to absence can create a more satisfied workforce. They may even argue that wage levels are set at a level that assumes some absence.

But the burden falls unfairly. Some people struggle in when ill; others phone in at the first hint of a cold. Some set off early and trudge through the snow, others blame the lack of public transport. Some people chose to live close to work and can walk, some like to live far away and put themselves at the mercy of public transport. Some people can work from home while others cannot.

When business has contingency planning, London’s bus managers should be held to inquiry as to why they failed but it is too much to expect Transport for London to foot the employers’ wage bills.

For most employers it would be profitable to add a week to everyone’s holidays and tell staff that those days are for visiting doctors, watching football, or for when sickness, strikes of other circumstances prevent them coming in. Compassion can still be shown for extended illnesses but any extra days would come from the employees’ own wages.

It would make people realise that someone must pay for days off and make a lot of people keener to put work first.

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