Tribunal award to 'courteous' driver
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A DRIVER/labourer was sacked on the spot when he was accused by his boss of deliberately wasting time on a job. John McNeil was dismissed by scaffolding firm Landfall, after taking almost two hours to deliver a load of scaffold ng to an address in Edinburgh.
But an industrial tribunal has ruled that Mr McNeil was unfairly dismissed in May. It has ordered the Glenrothes, Fifebased firm to pay him £2,493 compensation. The tribunal heard that Mr McNeil had difficulty delivering the scaffolding to its destination because of parked cars blocking the street. He arranged with a resident to have space cleared then reversed his lorry in to make the delivery.
The tribunal was told Mr McNeill carried out the job "skil fully, courteously and without complaint." When he got back to the depot, however, his boss accused him of deliberately wasting time, claiming that the lorry's tachograph appeared to show he had taken two lunch breaks.
Mr McNeill explained that he had worked through his normal lunch hour and had driven to Craigmillar Park for a break when he had finished. His explanation was not accepted and he was sacked. Mr McNeil had been warned the previous month for time-wasting.
In its written judgment the tribunal criticised the firm for dismissing McNeil without making adequate enquiries — "It seemed to us that the respondents were too much aware of what happened in April to respond reasonably to what had happened in May," it said.
"We were not satisfied that the respondents had acted reasonably in summarily dismissing Mr McNeil in the light of the size and administrative resources of their undertaking and the substantial merits of the case."