Error-prone worker who cost company €93,000 loses unfair dismissal case

In one incident, the worker “had misjudged a situation and pressed the emergency stop on the machine which cost four weeks of production”.

By Gordon Deegan

An error-prone production worker at a medical device manufacturer cost his company €93,000 after making production errors over 16 separate dates during the course of one year.

The machine operator’s bosses at the manufacturing firm, where inhalers are produced, finally lost patience with the worker when he was involved “in a major production incident” on March 13 2017.

In relation to that incident, the worker “had misjudged a situation and pressed the emergency stop on the machine which cost four weeks of production”.

According to the company, the worker, during the investigation of the incident, stated that he did not know that the emergency stop was only for actual emergencies and that he had used it when he heard a banging noise coming from the machine.

According to the company, the incident led to a loss of product and significant monetary loss.

The man was suspended and later sacked by the firm for ‘gross incompetence and negligence’ as such negligence amounts to gross misconduct.

According to the company, the worker was directly involved in production errors leading to loss of product and significant monetary loss on the following dates: 15 March, 14 April, 9 May, 7 September, 9 December (all 2016) and 9 January, 30 January and 13 March (all 2017).

The man sued for unfair dismissal. However, adjudication officer at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), Orla Jones has thrown out his claim.

In her findings, Ms Jones found that she was satisfied that the worker was dismissed due to negligence and incompetence following a history of quality incidents culminating in the most serious incident of 13 of March 2017 which cost the employer four weeks of production amounting to €93,000 in losses.

Ms Jones said that she was satisfied from the totality of the evidence adduced that the firm’s decision to dismiss the worker “was reasonable and justified having regard to the circumstances of this case”.

Ms Jones said that the firm had afforded the worker “numerous opportunities to improve his performance and provided additional training to assist him in seeing to achieve the required improvement”.

After the major production incident of March 2017, the company told the hearing that a review at this point of the employee’s work performance showed a persistent pattern, despite training and mentoring and assistance, of failing to follow basic standard operating procedures.

The firm stated that one of the most serious concerns with the employee’s performance was his inclination to cover up errors leading to more cost for the employer in having to carry out Corrective Action Preventative Action (CAPA) investigations to source the problem.

The firm stated that it manufactures products for use in medical devices specifically inhalers “and that the quality of the product is paramount and went on to state that the risk of failure of a product in the field could have very serious consequences”.

Ms Jones said that prior to the March 2017 production incident, the worker had received a verbal warning and a written warning in respect of his failure to follow procedures and had also been involved in 15 other incidents which had resulted in the generation of CAPA reports.

The man had worked for the firm since 2014 and the company stated that the claimant’s work was initially satisfactory, but problems soon became apparent and the worker’s supervisor raised with him the issue of his failure to follow standard operating procedures.