Worker fired for smoking

Nov 26 2008 by Our Correspondent, Dumfries Standard Wednesday

A FLY puff in an office building has cost a factory worker and union representative both his job and his claim for unfair dismissal.

George McGaughie, who started work with Dumfries-based Interfloor Ltd as a process worker in 1968, was sacked by the firm for lighting up in his union office.

The synthetic rubber and polyurethane product factory in Heathhall had highly flammable materials and substances on site, and smoking was restricted to two designated smoking shelters, one of them inches in front of the window of Mr McGaughie’s office.

He was also branch convener of the GMB trade union and was highly regarded by management, both in his day job and his trade union capacity, and by union members.

The company had consulted with the GMB and Mr McGaughie in his role as branch convener about the introduction of a no smoking policy to come into effect from 2006 when the smoking ban was to be introduced generally in Scotland.

He was well aware of the introduction of the policy and the consequences of breach.

An employment tribunal in Dumfries heard that fire had previously cost the company over £1million in 1990 when a warehouse had been destroyed.

Mr McGaughie was fired after human resources assistant Heather Cartner, who was smoking inside the smoking shelter outside Mr McGaughie’s office, reported she had seen him smoking in his office on November 2 last year.

She reported the matter to health and safety officer Frances King and was told to report it to the health and safety manager but did not do so.

Next day, Mrs King reported the matter and senior management took it up.

Ms Cartner gave a statement that she had seen Mr McGaughie working in the union office sitting at his desk with a lit cigarette, a roll-up, in his mouth.

She said she could see clearly through the smoking shelter and the window of the office that it was lit.

She went straight to the union office and told him what he was doing was against company policy and against the law. She said he had finished his cigarette or put it out by this time. He responded: “Aye, aye, I ken, I ken, I ken.”

Photographs were taken during the investigation of cigarette ash on the floor around his desk, a plastic cup inside the waste bin with two cigarettes inside and the cup burnt with a lit cigarette.

At his disciplinary hearing Mr McGaughie said he came in on his day off for a meeting about redundancies. He had been outside in the smoking shelter having a cigarette when he heard the phone ring in his office and he went in to answer it. He said the roll-up was not lit.

He explained he was under a lot of pressure at home and work and was concerned the phone call could be that something was wrong with his wife.

He also pointed out it would be difficult to see into his office from the smoking shelter given the cleanliness of the union office window.

He had the roll-up in his hand when Heather Cartner came in and put it in a coffee cup which he had been drinking from earlier while outside having a smoke.

He said he had put his cigarette in the cup at that time as someone had been sitting on the bin outside so he put them in the bin in his office.

He also claimed the ash in the photographs could not be from a roll-up as it was the wrong type of ash.

After making further inquiries, Steven Paget, manufacturing manager, concluded he had been smoking in his office and that he should be dismissed.

Mr McGaughie, of 22 Jocks Loaning, Dumfries, argued dismissal after 40 years service for a first offence was too harsh.

At his appeal he said when Ms Cartner came to his office he replied: “No hen, it’s not lit”.

Philip Peek, former operations manager, rejected the appeal.

He said a fire would be catastrophic for the business, not to mention the threat to life and limb.

The tribunal ruled his dismissal was fair.