Recovering alcoholic fails in workplace claim over pint glasses and beer bottles

A recovering alcoholic who claimed his colleagues were “taunting” him by leaving beer bottles and pint glasses around the workplace has failed in his discrimination claim.

At the Workplace Relations Commission, the worker said it was “strange” that he was “suspended from work for allegedly smelling of drink” when he said there were “beer bottles outside the back door”.

His former employer responded that the bottles were litter left by patrons going to a nearby nightclub – adding further that in any event, the worker was not suspended, but out sick.

The tribunal rejected the worker’s complaint of discriminatory disability-related harassment under the Employment Equality Act 1998 in a fully-anonymised decision published on Thursday.

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The dispute arose because of a spillage of liquid at the factory on in September 2019, with both the worker and his supervisor blaming each other for what happened.

The complainant said the factory’s managing director asked him at an investigation meeting that day whether he had been “drinking the night before” – adding that other workers “smelled drink on his breath that morning”.

The worker

claimed he was suspended for “smelling of drink” before being transferred to other duties in a bid to “force” him to leave the job – which he said he did, resigning in December that year.

The company, which was represented at hearing by HR consultants Peninsula, said the worker “was not suspended”, but had been sent home without pay for health and safety reasons in line with the company’s alcohol and drugs policy.

It added the worker was moved to the other section because managers were aware he did not get on with his original supervisor.

In his harassment claim, the worker complained that a sanitising product was “renamed ‘alcoholic’”; that empty bottles of beer were “stacked at the door for weeks” and that an empty Heineken glass was left in the canteen for weeks. The presence of these articles and messages were an attempt to “taunt” him by colleagues, he said.

The company said only its managing director and warehouse manager were aware of his status as a recovering alcoholic.

Its position was that it used 100 per cent pure alcohol spirit in producing some beauty products that had to be marked “alcohol” – but not “alcoholic” as the complainant alleged.

“The premises is on the way to a nightclub and that people regularly left beer bottles on the ground outside the back door en route to and from the nightclub,” the company’s representative said.

“Pint glasses have been used as water glasses for staff in the canteen… The respondent cannot be faulted for a drink’s logo being present on dishware,” the HR rep added.