Partner Article

Pie Factory Fiasco

The Tipster remembers one of his first summer jobs working in a pie factory. I am sure what springs to mind is The Tipster finally crafting his pastry, trimming his fillings and simmering his onions and leeks over an Aga cooker. The reality was somewhat different. Instead, The Tipster would be dizzy and bamboozled as approximately 400 pie cases came whizzing past at a speed which seemed to break the land speed record. The Tipster’s job was to gently push the green button to his left hand side at quite a pace to ensure that the carefully prepared fillings hit, or should we say splattered in, the pie casing.

Now The Tipster was a hearty lad who liked a good pie at the best of times. Initially he had a few problems actually hitting the pie casing (but not splattering his co-workers). After perfecting this rapid art the only other problem was that he was rather exuberant in the fillings that were hitting the casing. Instead of the mandatory one splat of filling The Tipster, now working at speed, managed to get three fillings in each pie.

Of course, an error at one part of the line can lead to problems elsewhere and the factory had to be closed for a good hour or so for cleaning after the fillings, all freshly baked and warm, started to explode. The words Dan Dare Pies seemed appropriate. Following this error The Tipster was informed that his role was “temporarily redundant” and that he would be moved to a suitable alternative post. Now cleaning the toilets did not seem entirely suitable, or even a good alternative to The Tipster, particularly as he was getting 50p an hour less for cleaning up the mess. However, as a bonus and incentive he did get a free pair of Marigolds.

In these hard and economic times the issue of suitable alternative employment in a redundancy process can be a vexed one.

There was a recent interesting case involving a nurse who had been involved in community nursing for a number of years. During the redundancy process she was offered three alternatives. She rejected each one and in particular one which an Employment Tribunal deemed would have been suitable namely a role at a local hospital.

However, the Employment Appeal Tribunal overturned the Employment Tribunal’s decision on the grounds that the nurse had been working in the community for a number of years and therefore returning to a hospital environment was not suitable alternative employment. The Employment Appeal Tribunal also deemed that she should be awarded her statutory redundancy pay. This was on the grounds that the employer had denied the nurse her statutory redundancy pay as they believed she had unreasonably refused suitable alternative employment.

The message is clear employers must think very carefully not only about the status and level of remuneration of suitable alternative employment but also the job duties it entails given the historic duties undertaken by the employee.

Now - a batch of those Dan Dare Pies did actually escape the pie factory so if you are ever in a pie shop and see a pie with at least three different fillings you know where it came from.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by David Gibson .