Cook needed food for step-children's lunches from company fridges
An Ontario employer was entitled to fire a kitchen worker who stole food for his stepchildren, the Ontario Arbitration Board has ruled.
Bill Stanton was a cook for Compass Group, a food services provider operating a dining hall at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont. The facilities in the hall included walk-in fridges and a freezer, which were kept locked overnight and unlocked at the start of the day. Employees were expected to follow company policy that company property couldn’t be removed without written authorization from the manager.
Stanton worked a day shift on Nov. 29, 2010, starting 30 minutes before the supervisor showed up in the morning. Shortly after he arrived at work, his wife called to tell him the biological father of his two step children, aged four and seven, had dropped them off without lunch as he was supposed to. Stanton’s wife was upset because they didn’t have any food appropriate for their lunch.
As Stanton began work, he went into the fridge and put some salami and cheese in a box. He took some other boxes to the recycling bin and then the box of food into an unused shed. He claimed he wasn’t sure what he was doing but thought he might ask a manager if he could take it and pay later.
The supervisor arrived and saw Stanton going to the shed. Stanton saw the supervisor, continued to the shed, then nervously approached her to say “happy Monday.” The supervisor checked the shed, saw the salami and cheese in the box and told her own supervisor.
The supervisors called a meeting with Stanton and his union representative where Stanton denied stealing company product. When given the choice of being terminated for cause or resigning, he admitted to taking the food and explained his situation, saying salami was “slow-moving” in the dining hall anyway. He suggested a suspension and said he would reimburse the company, but the company thought the option it gave him was the only course of action. The total cost of the product Stanton took was $16.69, but the projected sales for the prepared product was $197.79. In the end, Compass fired Stanton for theft.
The board found Stanton’s misconduct was serious and brought his trustworthiness into doubt, particularly since he tried to downplay his culpability by not coming clean, characterizing the food he took as “slow-moving” and offering to pay only the cost rather than the sale value. Though it may have been somewhat on impulse, spurred by his wife’s call, he knew what he was doing and that it was wrong, said the board.
