Worker sacked for 'stealing' magazine out of trash wins $49K payout

An Irish airline security worker was accused of theft after picking up a discarded Time magazine. Photo/Getty Images.

In 2014, Irish airline security worker Tim Marks was sacked for "gross misconduct" after he took an $8 copy of Time magazine from a bin during a "momentary lapse of concentration".

Marks, from Ennis in Ireland's County Clare, picked up the publication, which had been discarded by a customer and placed inside a rubbish bag on a stairwell of a United Airlines plane by cleaners.

Soon afterwards, the 55-year-old was fired by airline security company ICTS Ireland, which has a zero-tolerance policy regarding theft.

But now, the company has been forced to pay its former employee NZ$49,000 after an Employment Appeal Tribunal found Marks had been unfairly dismissed.

He told the Irish Independent he welcomed the findings after a two-year fight to clear his name.

"(I am) very pleased with the outcome — even if it did take two years. I feel fully vindicated," Marks, who worked for ICTS for nearly a decade, told the publication.

"This was never about the money.

"I was accused of stealing and my main aim was to clear my name and get my character back intact and this decision has done that."

Marks has never denied taking the magazine, which he told the tribunal occurred during a "momentary lapse of concentration".

But he argued the company had overreacted by firing him, because he believed the magazine was of no value and was about to be thrown out.

"In hindsight, it was a mistake and one could consider it to be not professional, but it wasn't a deliberate act," he said during the hearing, according to the Irish Independent.

The tribunal found the decision to sack Marks had been "disproportionate" given the "value and significance of the property item in dispute, and the length of service and good employment record of Marks".

However, ICTS' Shannon Airport station manager Audrey Wilhite argued at the hearing that the dollar value of a stolen item was irrelevant.

She said all employees, including Marks, had been sent a memo regarding a separate incident which involved an employee losing their job after taking a can of Coke from a plane without the company's permission.

"We are a security company and the whole basis of what we do is protecting all of the items on the aircraft," Ms Wilhite said, according to the Irish Independent.

"That is our purpose for being there — if we have someone who breaches that, it is serious, it is extremely serious and we can't actually proceed with that person."

Marks' lawyer Conor Glendon said his client's "professional and personal reputation and integrity" had been vindicated by the decision.

However, Marks is not the only person to have made international headlines after being fired for seemingly petty reasons recently.

Earlier this month, New Zealand woman Kaye Gillan was awarded $19,000 in compensation after being sacked from her job at a rest home in 2016 for stealing a $1 bag of chips.

The Employment Relations Authority eventually ruled Birchleigh Management Services Ltd was "unnecessarily severe" when it dismissed Ms Gillan for taking a small packet of potato chips from a cupboard which stored snacks for residents.

Gillan tasted the chips and discovered they were stale before throwing them out.

Her employer found her guilty of serious misconduct and dismissed her.

- News.com.au