Tomorrow is a national holiday in our country so almost no business is open (except essential). Also, non essential companies end work one hour earlier than usual the day before holiday. Not only tomorrow we will have to work from home, but also we were not allowed to leave work earlier today as every other company. Our boss motivates us by saying “since we work with other international companies, they do not celebrate this day, thus we have to adapt to them”. Which sound reasonable, except whenever these other companies we work with celebrate their holidays, we have to adapt to them and not bother them on their free days. It would be fine if they paid us for that work from home on holidays (in our country it is obligatory for business to pay double the salary if people work on holidays), however, our company thinks that since we do not work from the office, it does not count as real work and we are not getting payed for that time, despite doing literally the same work as in office. Same thing goes with sick leaves. If you are feeling sick, they ask you to take out the notice from doctor that you are unable to work, but insist on you working from home. In our country when you take the sick leave with doctor notice, the government essentially pays you compensation depending on how much taxes you payed etc (European health system thing). So in that way you are still working for them, but you only get small amount of compensation from taxes tou have payed.
In short, company does not pay salary for working on holidays or sick days, but insist on working from home, because it does not count as real work in office.