Butcher fired after he took home meat wins €5,000 at WRC

A butcher who claimed he was fired hours after he took home a piece of meat which he had already paid for has been awarded €5,000 by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).

The WRC ruled that the employer, an unnamed craft butcher, failed to carry out any process of inquiry to allow the worker to explain what had happened and get “to the truth of the matter”.

Adjudication officer Pat Brady said in the context of a small business such as a butcher’s shop this did not require a “major investigation”, only simple steps to establish the “basic facts of what happened”.

The former employee told the WRC that he began working for the respondent on March 1st, 2021. He said on September 18th that same year he paid for a piece of meat and hung it in the main fridge of the shop for later collection. The value of the meat was €25, and he put €30 into the till and took €5 in change, the worker said.

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The meat was hanging on a display in a bag in the main fridge until 6pm when the butcher said he put it into his bag as he was leaving for the day. He said this was something he had done on numerous occasions before and other staff members had witnessed it.

He finished work at 6pm and as he was leaving, his manager was doing the cash and another manager was standing near the sink. Shortly after he got home he received a text message from his manager asking him about the meat that had been hanging in the fridge and seeking to confirm whether the complainant had taken it.

The butcher said he replied that he had and that it was his meat.

He said at 10pm that same evening he received a text from a second manager telling him that his employment was being terminated.

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He said he had worked for the respondent for nine months and did the “cash up” for them each day as he had his own set of keys to the shop. He told the WRC he could not understand why they felt the need to terminate his employment.

The butcher’s employer told the WRC that he had asked the complainant for proof of purchase as he had no record of the payment. He said he had checked on the till system for a Visa payment and accepted that he sent a text later that evening terminating the worker’s appointment.

In response to a question from the adjudicator he said that he did not interview the butcher to get his version of events. He said there was no disciplinary hearing because, he claimed, the worker had in fact resigned his position.

WRC adjudication officer Mr Brady said the facts of the case were not, essentially, in dispute except the contention by the employer that the butcher had resigned, an assertion that the complainant denied. The adjudicator said he accepted the worker’s version of what had happened and found that his employment had been terminated by the action of the respondent.

He noted that the employer had “every right” to inquire into the circumstances of the complainant’s purchase and in fact had an obligation to do so.

“In the context of a small business such as a butcher’s shop this does not require a major investigation,” Mr Brady said. “It merely requires an employer or somebody acting on his behalf to take simple steps to establish the basic facts of what happened before taking any disciplinary action, much less terminating a person’s employment.”

He found the employer had failed to carry out any process of inquiry so as to allow the complainant to explain precisely what had happened and get “to the truth of the matter”.

“The suggestion that the complainant resigned is not credible,” Mr Brady added. “It was a peremptory termination without any fair process, or indeed any process of any nature.”

Recommending that the butcher be paid €5,000 for the unfair termination of his employment, Mr Brady said the employer had “breached the very essence of natural justice” and this had rendered the dismissal unfair.