Marks &
Spencer has summarily sacked a
senior IT worker who blew the whistle on the
UK retailer's plans to cut redundancy benefits.
The man, who has not been identified, forwarded a consultative
memo from M&S to its 70,000 staff to the media in August. The
memo described how the supermarket planned to reduced redundancy
pay-outs by around 25%.
GMB's legal officer, Maria Ludkin, who represented the union's
members at the disciplinary hearing, described the sacking as "a
gross act of corporate bullying". The man left with £1,200, his
outstanding holiday pay.
Ludkin said
GMB will be appealing the decision and will launch a public
campaign to secure justice for this M&S worker inside and
outside the company.
"The disappointing part of today's decision is that M&S head
of global HR John Wareham stated that the long service of this
employee is totally irrelevant to the decision to sack him."
M&S internal investigators traced the employee, who had sent
details of the plan to a newspaper, by analysing e-mail traffic.
The firm suspended the worker, who has been with M&S for 25
years, on 21 August pending a disciplinary hearing and possible
sacking.
M&S confirmed the sacking. In a statement it said, “We never
take a decision like this lightly.”
The company took the decision because the man deliberately
leaked internal information and made derogatory and speculative
comments to the media, the statement said. This was despite other
internal routes available to address his concerns.
“We could not be confident that the individual would not disclose
internal company information in this way in the future,” it
said.