Bullying in practice?

Read the case study below and then discuss the case with your fellow learners in the forum.

Case study

Morrow vs Safeway Stores plc (2002) IRLR 9

Morrow was a bakery production manager at a Safeway store. She claimed constructive dismissal on the grounds of breach of mutual trust and confidence as a result of several months of criticism and unreasonable behaviour from her store manager. One event in particular resulted in her feeling she had no choice but to resign three weeks later.

Safeway was running a promotion that involved customers receiving a free bloomer loaf. Morrow had failed to ensure that there were sufficient numbers of bloomer loaves to allow customers to take advantage of the promotion. In response, the store manager delivered a strongly worded dressing down to Morrow in front of colleagues and a customer. One of the things he said to her was If you cant do the job I pay you to do, then I will get someone who can. He returned later that day to reprimand Morrow again on finding that the problem had not yet been resolved. The store manager admitted that he had made these comments.

An Employment Tribunal concluded that the public dressing down was to be deprecated and did constitute a breach of trust and confidence but that, given Morrows failure to meet the needs of the promotion, the telling off and resulting breach in trust and confidence were not sufficiently unreasonable to justify Morrows resignation and constructive dismissal claim. In addition, Morrow had not attempted to resolve her grievances through the companys official grievance channels.

Morrow then appealed the decision and it was heard by the Employment Appeals Tribunal. The EAT ruled mutual trust and confidence was a fundamental implied term of the employment contract and that where an employer has breached this duty, an employee can treat themselves as having been constructively dismissed. Because they judged that it was unclear in the Morrow case whether the store managers behaviour was sufficiently serious to constitute a breach of the term, the case was returned to Employment Tribunal for a rehearing.

(Adapted from Korn, 2001, and Thompsons, 2002)

-Do you think that the store managers behaviour is best described as bullying or as a necessary reprimand?

-How important do you think it was that the store manager delivered the telling off in front of a customer?

-How significant do you think it was that Morrow had not resolved the bloomer supply issue when the store manager returned later in the day?

-Why might Morrow not have raised a grievance when this option was available to her?