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Sacked for having a cup of coffee on the job
A cleaner who was sacked because he had a cup of coffee on the job has won an unfair dismissal case in the Fair Work Commission. In deciding the dismissal was unfair, Fair Work Commission vice president Adam Hatcher quoted the modern philosopher Alain de Botton: "Office civilisation could not be feasible without the hard take-offs and landings effected by coffee and alcohol." The part-time cleaner sought the "take-off" of a cup of coffee in a Sydney office block shortly before his evening shift started. "However, far from uplifting him, that cup of coffee was the direct cause of his rapid descent into summary dismissal two days later," Mr Hatcher said. The cleaner's employer, Glad Group Pty Ltd, characterised the coffee drinking as theft. It said the act was "serious misconduct warranting summary dismissal" and had caused a serious risk to its business reputation and profitability. In awarding the cleaner $9187.20 in damages and the right to get his old job back, Mr Hatcher concluded the dismissal was "unjust and unreasonable". He said the cleaner's conduct was "insignificant to the extent that it could not constitute a sound, defensible or well-founded reason for his dismissal". "In my view, describing his conduct as theft verges on an abuse of the English language as used and understood by the ordinary person," he said. "Equally the consumption of a glass of water drawn from a client's tap on a hot day would also constitute theft and the use of a client's toilets to answer an urgent call of nature without express prior permission would be a trespass." The cleaner, an international student on a visa that restricted him from working more than 20 hours a week, recently completed a Masters degree in IT and was working as a part-time cleaner in an office block at 130 Pitt Street in Sydney's CBD. Mr Hatcher accepted the cleaner's evidence that he had a good rapport with tenants in the office block who would often chat to him. The cleaner said staff who worked for CMC Markets told him he was welcome to a cup of coffee when he was cleaning. On January 12, he arrived 45 minutes early for his shift and had a cup of coffee with another cleaner while waiting for their 6.30pm starting time. When the cleaners walked to the office lifts with their coffee cups, the CMC office and facilities manager asked them where the coffee was from. She said: "You are not allowed to make coffee." To which the cleaner replied: "We are sorry, we did not intentionally want to upset you. We did not know we were not allowed to." When she replied OK, the cleaner assumed the apology had been accepted. But the manager reported the incident and requested the cleaners be removed. The manager escalated her complaint to Glad, which sacked the cleaners for serious misconduct, despite their explanations and apologies for any misunderstanding. The manager who complained about the coffee consumption also wrote to the manager of Investa, which had contracted Glad's cleaning services, saying she did not begrudge anyone a cup of coffee "but not without my knowledge". "I find it totally inappropriate for cleaning staff to be in our tenancies for any purpose than to provide contracted cleaning services," she said. Mel Gatfield, secretary of United Voice NSW, the union that represented the cleaner in the Fair Work Commission, said it was "outrageous that, in Australia, in 2016, a worker is sacked for having a cup of coffee before his shift". "His case is indicative of the exploitation and poor treatment many cleaners experience in Australia," she said. (1/6/2016 Sydney Morning Herald) 很久沒有評論澳洲這邊的事情了。這一篇評階級觀念。 上面這則新聞, 發生得有點un-Australian. 我不是指澳洲人有甚麼了不起, 只是想指出社會風氣習慣和香港很不相同。這裏的階級觀念沒有香港的強烈, 技術勞工階層賺錢能力不比白領弱, 叫這些人上門的call out fee絕不便宜, 甚麼也沒做只看兩眼, 動不動就一百幾十澳元, 然後再斷鐘計, 所以自己有能力就盡量百般武藝都懂多少, 成為家中的handy man. 我家中不少裝在天花的燈買了新的就自己換, 不是換燈泡, 而是要接駁生電那種。在香港, 買燈多數都包安裝的, 但這裏甚麼都分開計算, 自己做得來就盡量做。這些技工上門, 完全沒有任何地位卑微的態度, 不論是水喉匠或電工, 大家寒喧幾句, 要茶要水在所不拘。看到上面貼出來的新聞, 真的有點驚訝。我同意外判清潔工到公司上門做清潔, 咖啡不飲為妙, 跟喝水或用洗手間不能相比, 給罵了又道歉了事情理應完結, 這女經理再要以書函投訴以致連工也丟了實在太不近人情。既然不稀罕一杯咖啡的價值, 又何必要begrudgingly 寫信要求炒魷魚。不知換了是個男經理又會怎樣處理, 又不知這女經理是否正在調校生理時鐘, 到了又冷又熱的年華。有些女人到了那年華是生人勿近的, 只有充滿奉承的人才可以親近。 |
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