Baker wins old job and more damages

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

An Auckland baker who phoned in sick but was fired for allegedly organising an illegal strike has won his job back with enhanced damages of more than $25,000.

Goodman Fielder sacked team leader Ashik (Ricky) Ali from its Quality Bakers plant in East Tamaki last July over suspicion he helped to orchestrate a wave of absenteeism in protest against heavy workloads after restructuring job cuts.

He was among five workers who called in sick on the same day, a Sunday, forcing the company to hire casual labour and leading to product rejects and missed orders.

Union officials told the company they took phone calls from an employee about a plan for a group of workers to call in sick and advised that mass absenteeism was not the way to fix under-staffing.

But the Employment Court found the company's investigation of the absences so defective it could not have reasonably concluded Mr Ali was part of any plan, or even that he was not genuinely sick.

It has ordered the company to take him back after he works out notice at another bakery.

Mr Ali initially won an unjustified dismissal case with the Employment Relations Authority, but authority member Janet Scott discounted a damages award by 35 per cent to $15,745 for what she said was his contributory conduct.

The company challenged the decision in the Employment Court, but Judge Graeme Colgan lifted the sum by more than $10,000 - to $25,769 - after absolving Mr Ali of any blame.

Bakers' Union secretary Ian McGovern said yesterday that Mr Ali was looking forward to returning to a job where he held an exemplary record, and where workload difficulties had been eased since his dismissal by the recruitment of more staff.

Ms Scott said she was convinced Mr Ali was involved in a plan to withdraw labour, and that his position as team leader would have justified dealing with him more harshly than with others, had the company investigated the absences with an open mind.

"However, the inquiry and overall process was so deficient and so tainted by predetermination and disparity that it is impossible to justify the decision to dismiss," she said.

Because the company was quick to accept the word of three other workers that they were sick, and deemed a fourth to have been on domestic leave, this left Mr Ali "in a minority group of one who had planned and carried out a plan to be absent from work".

Although a plan by a group of workers to withdraw labour in such circumstances would amount to an illegal strike, a serious matter, there was no such thing as a one-person strike.

Ms Scott believed other workers fabricated evidence to support Mr Ali, including his insistence that he tried to arrange cover for his absence.

But Judge Colgan accepted he made reasonable efforts to arrange cover.