A recently published judgment from last year has detailed how a postal worker was dismissed by the Royal Mail for urinating in public.
Mr R Rawal v Royal Mail Group Ltd ET: 3304062/2018
The Claimant, Mr Rawal had worked for Royal Mail since 2000 and had a clean disciplinary record. He was dismissed for gross misconduct in 2017 because he had been filmed by a member of the public in September that year urinating in a lay-by having parked his delivery van there. The complaint to Royal Mail said:
“It was really upsetting seeing someone doing that on the street, especially someone from a big, famous and professional company as Royal Mail.”
The Claimant was able to name numerous other colleagues who had urinated in public and not been dismissed, some having even been caught by a homeowner relieving themselves in their garden. One witness told the Employment Tribunal:
“there was not a post person alive, man or woman, who had not been caught short and had to urinate in public.”
The Claimant was a health and safety officer for the Trade Union CWU and argued to the Tribunal that his involvement with the Union (in particular, helping to plan driver collection routes) had brought him in to conflict with his line manager. The Tribunal also heard a recording of a discussion of Mr Rawal’s case in which a Royal Mail employee said:
“Just sack him. I can’t be bothered with it. It’s boring, all this stuff. Just tell him, look, he done it. We know he done it. Just sack him.”
The Claimant was able to evidence clear inconsistency in treatment and the Tribunal found that the real reason behind the sacking was union activities and a poor relationship with a line manager – his dismissal had been unfair.
The Tribunal concluded:
“Mr Rawal has shown that a significant number of his colleagues who were not office-based have at one point or another within long careers have been caught short and urinated in a public place. This is not an uncommon matter that [Royal Mail] must deal with”.
The Claimant was awarded £37,720.98 made up of a basic award of £8,068.50 and a compensatory award of £29,652.48.
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