€20k for worker dismissed unfairly in ham row
A well-known retail business, the Breadski Brothers has been left with a €20,000 bill after unfairly dismissing an employee in a dispute over 12 slices of ham.
This follows the Labour Court determining that Sloneczko Ltd, trading as the Breadski Brothers, pay €20,000 to sacked sales assistant, Agnieszka Kopacz.
The Labour Court made the ruling after finding that the Castlebar-based company unfairly dismissed Ms Kopacz in May 2017.
Deputy chairwoman at the Labour Court, Louise O’Donnell ruled Ms Kopacz’s complaint of unfair dismissal to be well founded.
The ruling overturns an earlier ruling by an adjudication officer at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) which found that the dismissal was not unfair.
The WRC found that the decision to dismiss Ms Kopacz was not unfair after the bread business showed CCTV from January 28, 2017 showing Ms Kopacz slice ham at the shop’s deli counter when serving a customer.
The footage showed Ms Kopacz slice 10 slices of ham, print a label, then slice 12 more slices of ham and add them to the package. Ms Kopacz then placed the label printed earlier on the outside of the package.
Ms Kopacz had worked for the company since 2011 before her May 2017 dismissal.
MD of the business, Marcin Chlebitzki told the Labour Court he made the decision to dismiss Ms Kopacz based on a breach of honesty and loyalty, and therefore he did not consider any other options.
Ms Kopacz told the Labour Court she was not afforded fair procedures and that she believed the issues only arose because she had made a bullying complaint.
On the ‘ham’ allegations, Ms Kopacz told the Labour Court that sometimes customers will ask for €5 worth of meat instead of a certain number of slices and this requires that you put in the code and then slice and weigh the meat but sometimes it is not enough, so you have to add more slices. She said when you get to the correct amount you print the label and that is what she did on the day in question.
Ms O’Donnell found it was abundantly clear to the court there was confusion in relation to the allegations against Ms Kopacz right up to and during the two-day Labour Court hearing.
Ms O’Donnell said the allegations against Ms Kopacz were initially in relation to serving her husband and then at the preliminary stage changed into an allegation that she had in effect stolen some slices of meat.
Ms O’Donnell stated that it was not disputed that the meat was paid for as receipts were relied on by the Breadski Brothers who, submitted that the incorrect weight for the meat was on the receipt.
Ms O’Donnell found that in view of all the circumstances, the court cannot see how this dismissal could be deemed to be fair.
In relation to the reasonableness of the sanction of dismissal, Ms O’Donnell stated that Mr Chlebitzki could not tell the court how he had come to the decision to dismiss other than to say that it was related to honesty and loyalty and had not considered other sanctions.Ms O’Donnell found that Ms Kopacz has suffered financial loss as a result of the wrong she has suffered.
She stated: “The Court considers it just and equitable in all the circumstances of this case to award the complainant compensation in the sum of €20,000.”
