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A manager of the Lidl supermarket chain has lost his job because alcohol was consumed at the New Year’s Eve drinks he had organized for the staff. Drinking alcohol in the store is prohibited for employees, with dismissal as the most severe punishment. It involved three bottles of drinks.
The man knew that alcohol was not allowed in the workplace. It is stated, among other things, in the employment contract he has had since he joined the originally German chain in August 2022.
In the rules
“Violation of this prohibition may constitute an urgent reason for immediate dismissal for the employer,” states the consequence of the rule that alcohol or drug use is prohibited on company premises during working hours.
This rule is also stated in the personnel handbook. In short, the man should have known that. In addition, he was warned by several managers that alcohol was not allowed to be served during the New Year’s Eve drinks on December 30 last year.
‘It’s just part of it’
The man organized the drinks in the canteen of the supermarket. When he was told by a district manager that alcohol would not be allowed to be served, he responded by saying that staff could then get it from the store themselves.
When another district manager asked him on January 2 whether it was true that alcohol had been consumed, he confirmed this. He also knew that it was not allowed. “I was aware that drinking was not allowed,” he said, according to the colleague’s statement.
The fact that he allowed it to happen anyway was because ‘it is simply part of having a drink’, it can be read in the verdict of the case. When asked whether he had been drinking himself, he replied in the affirmative.
Three bottles of liquor
His defense in the Middelburg court that it had not all happened that way was in vain. The statements of the four supermarket employees provide a ‘reliable’ picture. And the man was unable to convince the subdistrict court judge that the case is different.
In addition, the drink that was consumed came from the store itself. And according to Lidl, they have not been paid properly. The bottles of Riesling, Hugo and ‘Spumante on ice’ are not on the staff purchase list, which they should have been.
The man could not explain why that did not happen. The summary dismissal is therefore justified. His demand for severance payments totaling 41,000 euros will therefore not be honored.
His defense that he is still young and has always functioned well is of no use. He further argued that he had already been punished enough. The plan to buy out his brother from their shared home fell through due to the dismissal. This argument also fell on deaf ears.
