FIRING OF STORE CHIEF FOR LETTING UPSET WORKER SMOKE 'UNFAIR'
Irish Independent 22/9/2006
Original URL:
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1693439&issue_id=14682
A TESCO manager, who was awarded €27,000 after
being fired for letting a traumatised worker break the smoking ban, has claimed
his employer
was "slavish" about rules.
Paul Collins, of Tournore Court, Dungarvan, Co Waterford, said he was only
trying to be compassionate by turning a blind eye when a man,
whose father was dying, lit up.
He said he felt justice had been done after his appearance at an Employment
Appeals Tribunal.
It found Mr Collins had been unfairly dismissed from his job at the Tesco store
in Cork's Douglas Shopping Centre after allowing the worker
to smoke in the staff canteen.
"I think I behaved as a compassionate man would act in the circumstances.
"I think Tesco employed a slavish and unthinking adherence to a diktat," said Mr
Collins.
His solicitor, Justin MacCarthy, said he felt Mr Collins's case was an example
of a supermarket chain getting orders from the UK "in an
unthinking way".
Mr MacCarthy said the decision to fire Mr Collins was taken by Tesco's HR
department in the UK. "It is a setback in his career, but he has
secured other employment," he said.
The smoking incident occurred at 2am on November 4, 2004 when Mr Collins was in
the canteen with a security officer and a member of the
staff. When the staff member began to smoke, Mr Collins did not ask the worker
to stop. When the security man asked him to stop, the man moved
to the window and continued to smoke out the window.
The security officer said he would have to report the incident and Mr Collins
asked him not to. There was an argument about how Mr Collins
had handled the incident.
Subsequently, he did not mention the matter in his shift report, but the
security officer did. As a result, Mr Collins was suspended on full
pay for a week pending further investigation.
At meetings with store managers, Mr Collins admitted he had allowed the worker
to smoke in the canteen "because of his personal
circumstances". No one else smoked in the canteen in his presence. He had not
reported the incident because he wanted to deal with it
himself.
The store manager said he decided to dismiss Mr Collins "because he had wilfully
allowed another employee to smoke, which was serious
misconduct and a breach of trust".
Allowing the worker to smoke had exposed Tesco to the risk of prosecution.
Mr Collins had appealed his dismissal but Tesco's employee relations manager had
upheld the decisiondue to "gross misconduct".
In a determination issued yesterday, the tribunal said Mr Collins had explained
to store managers that he was sympathetic towards the worker
who was smoking as the man was very upset because his father was "seriously ill
and dying".
The tribunal said it was not satisfied that Tesco "gave the weight a reasonable
employer would have given to these facts" when it considered
the matter. Mr Collins's dismissal was a "disproportionate sanction".
Mr Collins began working for Tesco in 2003 and was promoted to nightshift
manager, which meant he was responsible for health and
safety in the store.
Anne-Marie Walsh and Andrew Bushe