Sacked for ‘taking binned magazine’

A 53-year-old airline security man said yesterday that he was sacked for taking a €4.50 copy of Time magazine off an aircraft because “management was out to get me”.

On the third day of an unfair dismissal claim case at the Employment Appeals Tribunal, Tim Marks said “there was a definite campaign to get me just because I saw fit to raise concerns over the work environment” at ICTS Ireland’s operation at Shannon Airport.

Former employee of ICTS Ireland Ltd, Mr Marks was fired on November 1, 2014, for the theft of the magazine from a rubbish bag on the stairwell of a United Airlines aircraft at Shannon Airport on October 22.

The company said the magazine theft amounted to gross misconduct.

At yesterday’s hearing in Ennis, Co Clare, Mr Marks revealed he submitted a list of grievances on behalf of himself and 15 colleagues about the company with the firm’s human resources department in Britain in November 2013.

Mr Marks said: “There has been ill-feeling for a long time among the workers and I sent the list of grievances. I was invited to go along to a meeting and I felt that from that point on, they were out to get me.”

Mr Marks said it was the first time he had taken a magazine off an aircraft.

The three-member tribunal said yesterday it is to issue its ruling in due course.