An employee who works for the German vehicle manufacturer BMW has won more than 16,000 Pounds after being sacked for collecting his lunch during his break, reported The Mirror.
Ryan Parkinson, a temporary employee at the automaker's Oxford factory, was let go after taking his lunch break at Burger King while working an overtime shift. When he returned, the managers reprimanded him for failing to inform them that he had taken a lunch break, despite Parkinson's insistence that he had.
He was sacked following a May 2019 disciplinary hearing over the Burger King trip, only to be reinstated and handed a written warning after he appealed in June. Parkinson was fired once again, however, on November 25, 2019, for gross misconduct for leaving the site once more, reported the news outlet.
Mr. Parkinson was actually working for GI Group, which provides contract workers to BMW's Oxford factory. He filed a lawsuit against the GI group for wrongful termination after his supervisor claimed that he had left the site on two occasions without permission, reported The Telegraph.
Mr. Parkinson contended that he had just gone to the parking lot to retrieve his sandwiches, which he deemed to be part of the workplace site.
The Employment Tribunal determined that the claim's status-whether Mr. Parkinsohn was on site during lunch or not-was not thoroughly investigated. The judge, Stephen Vowles, said that "GI Group" failed to investigate the assertions by Mr. Parkinson and his trade union representatives that this was a widespread practice done during break times by dozens of other employees. "There was no evidence of any procedure in place by (GI Group) for obtaining permission to exit the site or to notify a supervisor of exiting the site, or the recording of any such permission or notification."
