The Weird and Whacky World of Employment Law!

 

In the current economic climate you may be forgiven for thinking that employees would value their jobs all the more and would be on their best behaviour.,.. apparently not as these recent examples from the tribunal courts appear to illustrate.

 

 

CCTV footage showed the employee (pub manager) being pushed around his work place in a wheelie bin by a female colleague. When the wheelie bin stopped he got out, falling and injuring himself and tipping broken glass from the bin onto the floor.   The female embraced him closely whilst helping him up. When questioned about the injury he first stated that it happened at work and later that he had been drunk outside work hours. His manager was suspicious and found the CCTV evidence. The employee could offer no explanation however the female employee stated that they had both been drinking and that she ‘was never drinking again’. He was fairly dismissed for failure to report an accident, drinking on the premises and loss of trust to manage the premises.    

 

5 employees were fairly dismissed having been caught on CCTV repeatedly urinating on company property for a collective total of 33 times. Reasons supplied for this behaviour included ‘a weak bladder’, ‘lack of cover’, ‘saving time to keep the machinery going’ and ‘it is the culture here’. 3 more employees who were only caught on one occasion each were given disciplinary warnings. 

 

Following a dispute regarding parking, a male employee dropped his trousers baring his buttocks to a female employee who later claimed sexual harassment, despite her previously good relationship with the other party. They had joked together and frequently greeted each other ‘hi sexy’ and ‘hello handsome’. Despite the male employee claiming that pulling mooneys was a common occurrence in the workplace he was dismissed for ‘obscene behavior in a public area’. The employment tribunal found that his dismissal was fair and awarded the female employee £4,500 injury to feelings - £3.5k to be paid by the company and £1k by the ex-employee!

An employee and a supervisor got into a dispute after the employee took extreme offence having been shown an inappropriate joke on the supervisor’s mobile phone. The employee felt that the joke was directed at him and retaliated through verbal abuse and throwing a hot mug of coffee over the supervisor and finishing off by rubbing toast over his head. Despite the provocation the reaction was over the top potentially dangerous and the dismissal was found to be fair.