Alex Trelinski
A COURT says the Mercadona supermarket chain was wrong to sack a worker who ate an out-of-date ‘croqueta’ which was going to be thrown into a dumpster.
The man was dismissed for a ‘very serious’ offence and given a €944 pay off despite working for the company for 16 years as a junior manager and netting a monthly salary of just over €2,000.
The Castilla-La Mancha Superior Court(TSJ) ruled the employee- from a store in Albacete- was unfairly sacked and ordered the retailer to either reinstate him or pay out €40,000.
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Mercadona had appealed to the Superior Court after a lower court found in the man’s favour.
The company has indicted that it will pay the ex-employee the mandated compensation rather than taking him back on.
The ‘croqueta’ incident dates back to July 2023 when a packet past its sell-by date had already been thrown into a cart- destined to be chucked into a rubbish container.
The worker voluntarily told the store manager that he had eaten a croquette without paying for it and the next day he was sacked.
He had been reminded that the company prohibits eating products from stores without paying for them- even if they are going to be thrown away.
The TSJ said the worker’s action cannot be regarded as a very serious offence, and it was an issue that perhaps deserved a fine.
The court ruled that ‘in no way’ can eating a croquette that was going to be thrown away should lead to the ‘the most serious sanction in workplace, which is the dismissal of an employee’.
Mercadona argued that the worker was aware of the rules and knew what the consequences where if he broke them.
They even tried to argue that he ate the whole packet of croquettes with a retail price of €4.20 which was ‘fraud’ and an ’embezzlement’ of the company.
The worker argued that wasn’t true and two witnesses said he only ate a single croquette.
He stated that Mercadona did not want to hear his side of the story and rushed to dismiss him, despite his good conduct for 16 years and that he had been ‘highly valued’ by the company.
