Second man sacked for taking 'Celebrations' sweets loses unfair dismissal case

By Gordon Deegan

A second warehouse worker who was sacked for helping himself to sweets from a ‘Celebrations’ box has lost his unfair dismissal action.

It follows the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) ruling that the decision by a large food discount store operator to sack the man for gross misconduct for taking the sweets was fair.

The retailer employs 3,000 people across 129 stores and already in April of this year, the WRC ruled that a Slovak national who took 'Celebrations' sweets during the same incident was fairly dismissed.

Now, in a separate ruling, the WRC has found that a second man - from Poland - to take the Celebration sweets from a crate on three separate occasions after 6pm on December 4, 2016, was also fairly dismissed.

A third man involved in the incident on that date resigned.

In her decision, WRC Adjudication Officer, Patsy Doyle said the misdemeanour was of a small scale and it was clear that no harm was caused by his actions.

However, Ms Doyle stated that it came in complete opposition to the company practice and policy on discarded goods.

Ms Doyle said that she accepted the prevalence of the zero tolerance on theft of product.

Ms Doyle found that the complainant “did not shrink from his admission of taking the sweets, he just did not share the company’s views on the breach of zero tolerance”.

In reaching her decision, Ms Doyle was aided by written submissions, site photographs, photos of product returned and maps of the warehouse along with oral submissions at a WRC hearing into the case.

The man was first employed at the warehouse site in March 2013 and was sacked on January 19th 2017 and has not worked since.

The worker told the WRC hearing that he was "incredulous" when asked to explain why he had taken the sweets by a superior and to review CCTV evidence of the incident.

The worker said that he had eaten the sweets believing it was an approved practice. He said that a colleague told him that it was the company’s way of saying ‘thanks’.

The man said that he had availed of sweets in that way in the past and confirmed that he had seen others take sweets.

The worker also recalled two occasions in 2014 where cupboards were full of marshmallows, and while not authorised to take them, he simply assumed he could.

A logistics director submitted that the company had a zero tolerance towards eating on duty.

The discount retailer employed a solicitor and a barrister in the case to defend its decision and the barrister told the hearing that the worker “had shown no remorse, no insight and instead sought to minimise the action by referring to it as “only a couple of sweets”.

The barrister stated that the company had no desire to target the worker as he had been a competent worker.

The company had issued the worker - represented by a solicitor in the case - with a formal written warning concerning a work boots issue some nine months earlier.