A SUPERMARKET worker who said he had been branded as a thief after taking home a day-old newspaper property supplement has been awarded €9,000 compensation for constructive dismissal.
An Employment Appeals Tribunal was strongly critical of Mircan, trading as Dunphy's SuperValu, Barrack Street, Granard, Co Longford, for suspending John Kiernan of Springlawn, Granard, and then giving him a final warning.
"The tribunal feels that the item in question had no monetary value, and finds that the action of the employer was wholly unreasonable and disproportionate," it said in a determination issued yesterday.
Mr Kiernan worked for Mircan and the previous owner of the company part-time, four days per week and two hours per day.
His job involved opening the premises, turning off the alarm and checking the deliveries such as bread and vegetables.
On September 16th, 2006, he took a property supplement from one of the papers that were to be recycled. If he had not taken the supplement it would have gone into a skip. The next day he was called into the office and the owner asked him why he took an item without permission.
The tribunal says Mr Kiernan was "astonished" and told the owner that it was a property supplement and that it had no value.
The owner told him that he was suspending him without pay and investigating. Subsequently, the suspension was lifted and he was given a written warning.
Mr Kiernan felt that he was being criminalised and his solicitor gave the supermarket a deadline of October 25th to retract the warning.
When it did not, he resigned. He said the reason he left was "because he was branded a thief".
The owner of the supermarket said Mr Kiernan had worked for him for three years and he admitted that he was known and respected in the locality.
He claimed CCTV footage showed that a magazine wrapped in plastic had also been taken but he admitted he had not put that to Mr Kiernan. He then said that the newspaper was capable of being sold if the bar code was still on it.
Accepting there had been a constructive dismissal, the tribunal said that the employer, "by his own admission, accepts that if the case rested only upon a newspaper being taken, he would not have issued the final warning.
"But there is no evidence before the tribunal of anything other than a newspaper being taken," the determination said.