Pay driver £10,000, tribunal tells haulier
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by Karen Miles • Northamptonshire haulier C Butt is to tighten up its disciplinary procedures after an industrial tribunal awarded £10,000 against it for unfairly dismissing a driver.
The tribunal ruled that one of Butt's drivers, Ken Jones of Barwell, near Hinckley was unfairly dismissed after he refused to take out another load at the end of his shift.
The firm had asked him to make the delivery under its contract with German supermarket chain Aldi. When he refused, he was not told that this amounted to a sackable offence.
Ruling against the company, the tribunal said: "No reasonable employer would have regarded dismissal as the appropriate action."
It went on to say that C Butt, which has about 500 staff, was a "very substantial employer" and although it "chose to deal with this particular matter on a very localised basis with inexperienced personnel", it could not use that as a shield against "accepting the degree of responsibility appropriate to an undertaking of its size".
The tribunal ordered C Butt to take back Jones on the Aldi contract, but the supermarket subsequently made this impossible by saying it would exclude Jones from its premises.
Jones has since turned down alternative work with C Butt and is now an owner-driver. Earlier this month, the tribunal ruled that because it was not practicable to make an order for reinstatement, it would order C Butt to pay Jones ,L10,039.
Speaking after the ruling, C Butt general manager Clive Hodgkinson said: "Our internal disciplinary procedures will be tightened up and some individuals retrained as a result of this."