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)RIVER who was dismissed by North Eastern British Road Services Ltd because his religious ids interfered with his duties has been awarded £724.50 compensation for unfair dismissal by a xls Industrial Tribunal.
he tribunal did say however that an employee who refuses an instruction to carry out a duty it fell within the normal terms of his employment was guilty of industrial misconduct whether not he felt he was committing misconduct in his own conscience.
he driver concerned, Mr T. Vatson, had been employed the Bradford, Yorks, depot ce November 1972 and had ,rays been a perfectly good ver.
7rom 18 months prior to his missal, Mr Watson had belle a Seventh Day Adven his future employment with the company.
In November 1977 Mr Watson refused to take a vehicle to Barrow on a Friday because it would have meant returning after sunset. He was instantly dismissed without pay in lieu of notice.
For BRS, it was argued that Mr Watson's belief and the company's requirements for its employees to carry out their normal duties were totally incompatible.
If they were to allow him not to carry out his duties for the very genuine reasons put forward, others less principled might well ask for similar concessions for reasons that were not so acceptable. The tribunal said it did not accept that Mr Watson's conduct constituted gross misconduct sufficient to warrant instant dismissal.
He had not suddenly put constraints upon the company of which they were previously not aware, as his beliefs had been the same for the previous 18 months.
He should have been warned before the incident that led to his dismissal.
What the company should have done instead of instantly dismissing Mr Watson was to warn him formally that any future failure to comply with an instruction would lead to dismissal, irrespective of what motivated that refusal.
Finally the tribunal said it could not help feeling that the crisis had been artifically contrived to precipitate Mr Watson's dismissal. It could easily have been avoided by a rescheduling of drivers duties.