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A postman who was sacked for failing to deliver post claimed he had been the victim of a “management stitch-up”.
Neil Cunningham had worked as a postal delivery worker for Royal Mail from the Barrow-in-Furness sorting office in Abbey Road since 2016.
In July 2019 complaints had been made about some items not being delivered and bosses decided to monitor Mr Cunningham’s round. He was later found to have failed to deliver 240 items and was sacked but took Royal Mail to an employment tribunal claiming he had been unfairly dismissed.
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The employment tribunal heard that Mr Cunningham had worked as a postal worker at the Barrow delivery office between September 2016 and December 2019, when he was dismissed for failing to deliver “door to door” (D2D) items on July 27 in 2019.
Tribunal documents reveal: “Prior to July 27, there had been complaints about D2Ds not having been delivered from Barrow. Someone had come forward and mentioned the claimant, so it was decided to monitor his round.
“Mr Rowarth (manager) spoke to the claimant explaining the D2Ds had to be done daily and a decision was made by that manager to physically mark the postal items for his duty.”
The tribunal heard that each postal delivery worker is issued a weekly allocation of D2Ds and is expected to deliver 20 per cent each day. Employment Judge Ganner said that although it was accepted there was an informal sharing of workload “the responsibility to do the work was an individual one as the claimant knew and it was his job to “mop up” any uncompleted work in respect of his round by the Saturday in any given week”.
“On Saturday July 27 Mr Metcalfe received a phone call from Mr Rowarth questioning him about a surplus of D2Ds that he had found… These totalled 240 items,” the employment tribunal documents state.
“Mr Metcalfe stated they were not his but his partner’s Neil Cunningham. An investigation began with [Mr Cunningham] being asked to provide a brief initial explanation… He maintained he had completed the D2DS on his round on Saturday July 27.”
Statements from Mr Cunningham’s colleagues however revealed he had previously been challenged for failing to do his work and colleague Angela Shields said she had overheard him saying he would deliver the D2Ds on Monday July 29. Mr Cunningham later claimed she was speaking “absolute rubbish”.
“Neil said he wasn’t doing the D2Ds until the Monday,” Ms Shields told her bosses.
“I said it wasn’t fair as Stuart was the full timer and it would be him who would be challenged. However, Neil just walked off and started speaking to someone else.
“Also, it’s not the first time that I’ve spoken to Neil about D2Ds as he’s pulled them out of the frame when I’ve put them in and he would just turn around and say ‘it’s none of your business, however, I don’t think it’s right as it is stitching other people up’.”
When Mr Cunningham was interviewed again he claimed there had been no D2Ds to do on Saturday July 27 and he said: “I don’t feel this is a fair case. I feel the managers have been looking for a verdict rather than using the conduct code properly.”
Although the employment judge accepted that Mr Cunningham was “usually a hard worker” and had experienced some health problems, including Type 1 diabetes, he ruled he was fairly dismissed.
The claimant’s three-year service, clean conduct record, and good standing with a wide range of colleagues were considered,” the judge concluded.
“However, these mitigating factors were outweighed by the gravity of the conduct. Further, the evidence suggested that this was not an isolated incident. It was considered that action short of dismissal would not have had the required corrective impact.”
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