A McDonald’s waitress has been awarded £3,000 compensation after claiming she was unfairly dismissed.
The former employee was fired for gross misconduct after giving extra chocolate topping to a colleague on a 99p flurry.
Sarah Finch, who worked at a branch in West Wales, took McDonalds to an employment tribunal after being dismissed for ‘giving away food without payment.’
The unfair dismissal claim was eventually settled out of court, and she was awarded more than £3,000 in compensation.
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Ms Finch commented:
“I was dismissed on the grounds of gross misconduct. I was accused of stealing food.
“The matter was trivial, in that I provided a fellow employee, who was purchasing a dessert, a generous sprinkling of chocolate pieces.
“There is no standard for such measures – they are always imprecise and will vary among customers.
“My colleague had asked me: ‘Make it a nice one’.
“So the measure I gave erred on the side of more than, rather than less.”
The application for unfair dismissal against franchise company Lonetree, who run a string of McDonald’s restaurants was initially made, however both sides reached an out-of-court settlement after the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service was called in.
A spokesman for the McDonalds franchise, said:
“This matter has now been resolved to the satisfaction of both parties.
“The Employment Tribunal case has been withdrawn. No admission of liability was made.”
