When it’s got a slice of cheese on it, according to McDonald’s - which fired a Dutch employee for adding cheese to a hamburger. This, the company argued, turned it into a cheeseburger, and the employee should therefore have charged more.
I concur that it was indeed rendered a cheeseburger, but sacking someone for such a minor breach of procedure seems totally disproportionate; and yesterday a Dutch court agreed, according to the BBC, awarding the employee over €4,000 in a triumph for good sense and fast-food workers alike.
Although the case wasn’t decided under English law, it is a useful example of the basic - but important - principle that sanctions for misconduct or performance failures need to be proportionate; not everything will justify dismissal.
The McDonald’s case has amusing facts, and employment tribunal decisions often involve interesting or unusual scenarios. XpertHR has launched a new employment tribunals page, providing summaries of recent employment tribunal rulings (such as a postal worker’s fair dismissal for delaying the mail) and full transcripts of the decisions. You can also follow new cases as they are added using the XpertHR employment tribunals feed.
Employers faced with similar misconduct situations to McDonald’s - cheese-related or otherwise - might want to consider the following questions, which are conveniently answered in XpertHR’s FAQs section:
|
| Permalink | Email this |
