A supermarket manager who was on more than $200,000 a year has won less than $1500 in compensation for unjustified dismissal after he joined an Australian competitor, allegedly taking company secrets with him.
Allister Watson went to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA), claiming that his former employer, supermarket firm Progressive Enterprises, was wrong in sacking him and it had not take the proper steps before dismissing him.
He sought compensation of up to $25,000, which included nearly $14,000 in reimbursement for lost pay.
Mr Watson was a senior manager at Progressive Enterprises for five years, on a salary of $217,000, before in February last year he took a similar job in Melbourne with supermarket chain Coles, which competes in Australia with Progressive's parent company Woolworths.
He gave Progressive two months' notice, and as part of its usual practice in such cases, the company audited his work computer.
It found he had emailed nearly 40 documents to his home email address and some had been transferred to a memory stick.
The company believed they were confidential documents and warned him he could be sacked for it.
Mr Watson said he did not think they were confidential and he was using them to plan his handover.
During the inquiry into these allegations lawyers argued over disclosure of documents, in particular a report by a senior Progressive investigator, which the company said was privileged information.
Despite the issue being unresolved, Progressive went ahead and sacked Mr Watson before his resignation date.
Mr Watson then applied for interim reinstatement, despite there being only about three of four weeks before he was due to start with Coles.
In a decision released today, ERA member Alastair Dumbleton found against Progressive for sacking him before the issue of the investigator's report could be resolved, and that it had acted with some contempt toward him in doing so.
It had ignored his statutory and contractual rights.
Mr Watson should have been able to see the report, which was highly prejudicial against him, Mr Dumbleton said.
The report, which was made available to the ERA, concluded Mr Watson's actions were "dishonest appropriation of company information" and the matter could possibly be referred to the police.
The allegations should have been revealed for him to respond to, he said.
Nevertheless, Mr Dumbleton said it was reasonable for Progressive to conclude Mr Watson's actions were serious misconduct and that he could have used the documents for reference while working at Coles.
He said Mr Watson's actions leading up to his dismissal were blameworthy to a very high degree. Mr Dumbleton determined Mr Watson was entitled to two weeks' pay if he had been reinstated for an interim period, or $9116, but because he had contributed 90 percent towards his dismissal, he was only entitled to $911.60.
The ERA also determined Mr Watson should be awarded $5000 for the effects of the unjustified dismissal, but with the 90 percent discount that was reduced to $500.
