A Clyde cafe owner has been ordered to pay more than $17,000 to a former worker for wrongful dismissal.
ERA member David Beck said Watt initially agreed to give her at least 24 hours’ work a week, between Mondays and Thursdays, while allowing her to drop off and pick up her child from school.
However, by November he was becoming frustrated by these arrangements, particularly her unwillingness to work occasionally on weekends, which he said was creating resentment among his other staff.
On January 18, he gave her an employment agreement that included a 90-day trial provision and a retrospective start date of November 20.
In her evidence, the complainant said he urged her to sign it "there and then", and she did so 20 minutes later, feeling "pressured and anxious".
At 3pm the same day, he told her he was ending her employment on the basis of the trial period.
She filed a personal grievance claim for unjustifiable dismissal the following month.
In his evidence, Watt said he fired the complainant over "performance concerns", and thought the 90-day trial period meant he did not need to provide any justification.
He had only employed her after being approached by her mother, whom he regarded as a friend, and struggled to accommodate her desired hours because of his changing business needs, he said.
However, instead of getting legal advice about dismissing the complainant, he researched "trial periods" in Google.
Mr Beck said the law required trial periods to be included in an agreement at the beginning of an employment relationship.
That meant the trial period in the agreement the complainant signed in January had no legal standing.
Watt had failed to properly record her agreed hours of work in an employment agreement, made her accept cash wages and did not give her the hours and days of work they had agreed to.
He had then ended her employment in a "wholly procedurally unfair manner".
"The nature of the dismissal and Mr Watt’s lack of commitment to the original bargain they had struck over available hours caused significant ongoing distress to [the complainant], and she became isolated in the workplace."
