Heavy plant operator who denied smoking cannabis at work wins €5,000 at WRC

A heavy plant operator who denied “ever smoking cannabis on site” has won €5,000 for unfair dismissal after his employer admitted sacking him without due process or an investigation.

The award was made by the Workplace Relations Commission against BPH Construction Limited, trading as Blueprint Homes, on foot of a complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 by the worker, teleporter driver Mark John Power.

The ruling came after a supervisor at the firm claimed at the Workplace Relations Commission that he got a smell of cannabis from the cab of a machine primarily driven by Mr Power on one occasion, and that a bag of cannabis was found in it on another occasion.

But Mr Power, who denied “ever smoking cannabis on site”, told the WRC he believed other matters were significant factors in his dismissal – citing complaints he made about being verbally abused by one colleague and “heavy drinking” by another co-worker.

His evidence was that the day that he was sacked, 8 September last year, company director Stephen Quinn called him over and told him: “There is too much drama on site,” before telling him not to show up the following week.

Mr Quinn told the tribunal that Mr Power was on “bad terms” with other workers on the site and caused “operational difficulties” for the project.

He said Mr Power had “narrowly avoided” reversing the "Load-All" machine into a work colleague on one occasion and that the firm discovered that damage had been done to the machine which cost €6,000 to repair.

Mr Power had been the "main driver" of this machine, the tribunal was told.

Mr Quinn's evidence was that Mr Power “had caused too many problems on site”. However, he acknowledged that he dismissed Mr Power “without investigation or procedures” but added that he had paid “all outstanding monies due” including two weeks’ wages in lieu of notice.

A site supervisor, Pat O’Shea, told the tribunal that when the loader was sent for repair to an outside firm, a bag of cannabis was found in the vehicle. His evidence to the WRC was that on one occasion he got “a smell of cannabis in the driver’s cab” when he went to talk to the complainant.

However, he accepted under cross-examination that Mr Power “was not the only driver of the vehicle” and that no allegation of cannabis use on site was ever put to Mr Power during his employment.

Addressing mitigation of loss, Mr Power explained that he got back to work about six weeks on from his sacking, working as a loader driver for an agency, and that he was on about the same rate of pay as he had earned at BPH Construction, which was €828.22.

Adjudicator Thomas O’Driscoll said there had been a “total disregard for any type of fair procedure” in the dismissal of Mr Power.

“The respondent may well have been justifiably angry at the complainant’s performance and behaviour on site, but he was never reprimanded nor investigated for any disciplinary reason before his dismissal,” the adjudicator wrote.

“I can come to no other conclusion but that this was an unfair dismissal due to the unreasonableness of the manner in which the dismissal was carried out,” he added.

Ruling that Mr Power had “satisfactorily mitigated his loss” by finding new work six weeks on from his sacking, Mr O’Driscoll directed the employer to pay Mr Power €5,000 as a “compensatory sum” worth about six weeks’ wages.

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