Toilet breaks recorded as 'other work'
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• A Manchester
Industrial Tribunal has decided
that Walkers Smiths Snack Foods was unfair to dismiss driver William Jones when it concluded that he had acted dishonestly in recording breaks as "other work".
Jones was employed at the company's Cheadle, Cheshire, depot. The drivers had been paid by the hour but in June 1993 an agreement was reached for "annualised" hours. Drivers had to work 2,052 hours a year, which was broken down into weeks.
In August 1994 one of the company's managers was at the Michelwood Service Area near Bristol when he saw Jones' vehicle draw in. He knew that it could only be going to the Bristol depot, which was 20 to 30 minutes away, and it was unusual for a vehicle to make a stop with such a short distance to go.
When Jones' tachograph charts were examined they appeared to show that he was taking breaks but recording them as "other work", so they were not deducted from the target hours.
The company concluded that was dishonest and sackedJones. Ile maintained he had no intention of defrauding the company. He said his infringements fell into two groups. The first was when he stopped at motorway service areas to relieve himself and took the opportunity to stretch his legs and check over his vehicle. He did not expect to have to record that as break time.
Twice he had inadvertently fallen asleep and had a break of over an hour. On one of those occasions the tachograph was in the rest mode and on the other he knew the company would dock the time accordingly. His fault had been in not informing management of what had occurred.
Jones maintained that the other drivers were not recording toilet stops as breaks.
The Tribunal said the annualised system was not easy to understand and they felt it was significant that the man who had carried out the investigation had to ask how toilet breaks were to be treated. It was far from clear and the manager who had dismissed Jones had acknowledged he would not have expected a driver to switch to rest mode if he was just going to the toilet and cleaning the windows.
Most of the incidents complained of were in that category, said the Tribunal: it concluded that the company had acted unfairly when it decided that Jones had acted dishonestly. Even if the company had been entitled to rely solely upon Jonas' admissions, it was unreasonable to dismiss him bearing in mind his record, his 19 years service, and the difficulty he was experiencing with the new system.
Jones had not contributed to his dismissal in any way, said the Tribunal. The proceedings were adjourned for the parties to agree a remedy.