Brandon Halstead, a young kitchen assistant at the British pub and restaurant chain Wetherspoon’s, used his employee discount card on a family meal for seven people.
The discount was 20% so was saved about 19.17 pounds in the account (about 22 euros at the exchange rate). Without knowing it, the employee had begun his worst work nightmare.
Misuse of the discount card. As and how he collected the british newspaper MirrorBrandon Halstead used his employee discount code on a meal with seven people, including himself, during a day off at one of Wetherspoon’s locations. Unknowingly, I was violating the internal policy that limits the discount to groups of four people or less. A detail that Brandon himself admitted he was unaware of when the company began an internal investigation.
Although the employee acknowledged his ignorance of the rule and showed his regret, the company accused him of “dishonesty and abuse” of the discount program, and subjected him to a disciplinary hearing. for serious misconduct. This improper use, although not in bad faith, led to a strict disciplinary sanction from the restaurant chain.
Undue access put the finishing touch. During the investigation into the use of the discounts, it was discovered that Brandon’s mother had access to the Wetherspoon’s app to organize work schedules and public transport trips for her son, who has a diagnosis of autism. The company interpreted this access as a violation of its data security policy, which further aggravated the sanctions, to the point of affecting Brandon’s salary, in addition to generating what the DailyMail described as “significant stress and anxiety.”
Faced with this situation, Brandon put pressure on the employee, aggravated by his autism condition, the young man requested medical leave for mental health reasons derived from the labor conflict. Given the company’s refusal to meet with them to find a solution that would put an end to that tense environmentBrandon’s mother filed a lawsuit arguing that the company failed to make “reasonable accommodations” to address Brandon’s disability.
Justice is clear: there was no bad faith. A local employment tribunal rejected the disability harassment claim, but considered disproportionate the application of a “strict zero tolerance policy” to a person with autism “who was unaware of the rule and did not act in bad faith in applying it.”
Labor Judge Murdoch noted that “in Brandon’s case there was no dishonesty test. Brandon immediately admitted to violating the discount policy rules because he was unaware of them. A typical characteristic of autism is a strong desire to comply with the rules. “A person without autism could have known the rules of the discount policy and fraudulently violated them, or could have lied when asked whether he had violated them,” Judge Murdoch stressed.
Adaptation of your job. Regarding access to schedule data by the mother, the judge criticizes the company for not having minimally adapted the position to Brandon’s needs. “We consider that the application of this standard procedure places Brandon at a substantial disadvantage compared to a person without autism. Therefore, the court ruled that Wetherspoon’s should compensate Brandon £25,412, equivalent to approximately €28,900, for failing to make the necessary adjustments to avoid the situation of stress and anxiety to your employee.
For its part, the company refused to offer comments to the Mirrorclaiming that “The individual remains employed by Wetherspoon and we do not comment on employment matters involving current employees. It should be noted that the employees’ harassment complaint was unsuccessful.”
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Image | Unsplash (Cova Software)
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