Supermercado Día employee fired for consistently using mask incorrectly

Confirmed. In certain circumstances, a worker can be dismissed if they do not wear the mask properly. This is what happened to an employee of the Fishmonger sector of DIA supermarkets in Spain, who repeatedly placed the face shield under her nose. Now a court has confirmed that his dismissal for this reason was appropriate.

“To the right you have to analyze everything in context. It is not the same thing not to wear the mask in an interior space where one is alone without contact with the public, as an employee who works in front of the public handling unpackaged food ”, explains the lawyer. José Luis Peñin, from the Abadón Pedrajas Office in Littler.

The place where the dismissal took place is a supermarket in Autonomous Community of Cantabria. The sources of the case explain that it is a “very small” locality in which everyone knows each other, located about 50 kilometers from the capital, Santander.

And in this context, which the lawyer speaks, is one in which it is necessary to understand, as indicated in the sentence, the circumstances and peculiarities of the case. Peñin explains that “there was a worker’s historical violation“Regarding the safety and hygiene protocols that the company had put in place in the face of the threat of a pandemic.

“The store manager had made many requests on the need to wear the mask correctly,” explains the lawyer.

The facts rushed May 27 when a customer approached the store manager to point out that the person shipping the fish had their nose visible above the mask. They both approached there and asked the fishmonger to change the location of the face shield.

According to the sentences to which this newspaper had access, the client informed the management of the center that the fishmonger had told her that “He wasn’t a policeman telling him what to do.” Both the store manager and the uncomfortable user criticized him for the treatment he gave the customer.

The woman now properly dismissed, answered according to the sentence, answered: “If you don’t like it, you go. If you want, we can fix it in the street, without the uniform ”. There were appeals for calm that did not work. Finally, the store management apologized to the customer.

Those most directly affected by the fishmonger’s insult ultimately did not come to trial as a witness – there were other people present in the establishment – precisely for reasons of proximity, given the small size of the city where the events took place, as lawyer Peñin explains.

The court understands that the company acted appropriately, classifying the facts as serious misconduct and its punitive consequences, such as appropriate dismissal. Beyond the general recommendations on the use of the mask, specifies the sentence, the employee “provided services with an unpackaged product, fish, therefore, the rules for the prevention of occupational risks developed by the defendant company, they forced him to use it correctly of it, covering the mouth and nose ”.

These circumstances and the fact that the fishmonger used “A threatening tone”, says the sentence, they led the labor authority to declare the dismissal of the legal employee.

With information from La Vanguardia