Factory electrician who endangered himself and others sacked for serious misconduct

A North Island poultry production factory was justified in dismissing an electrician for failing to follow basic safety procedures. Photo / Stock Image 123RF

Poultry producer Inghams Enterprises was justified in sacking an electrician who failed to follow basic safety procedures while fixing a frayed electrical cable.

It wasn’t the first time Mahendrakumar Suratkar had breached a health and safety rule, only this time it had potentially dire consequences for himself and others at the plant.

The registered electrician raised a personal grievance after he was dismissed for serious misconduct in October 2018, having worked for Inghams for about 13 years.

Suratkar was already on a final warning for serious misconduct, linked to “poor exercise of judgement” on a health and safety matter in June 2018.

This “explicit warning” included the possibility he would be dismissed for any further breach committed within 12 months.

The Employment Relations Authority (ERA), which heard the personal grievance, said in its January 20 decision that the incident which led to Suratkhar’s dismissal was considered to be serious misconduct because of the inherent danger presented by live electricity, which he was trusted to control.

The ERA said Inghams reasonably concluded that Suratkar had breached safety rules and by doing so had put at risk his safety and that of others.

In August 2018, Suratkar was asked to fix a frayed electrical supply cable at the firm’s Waitoa factory.

The Inghams employee put himself and others at risk when fixing a frayed electrical cable. Photo / Stock Image 123RF

When he’d finished, his supervisor inspected the work but found that a basic and mandatory safety procedure had not been followed to ensure the flow of electricity was cut off from the repair area.

It was found that Suratkar had deployed only one step of a critical two-step safety process during the isolation of power.

Rather than padlock the electrical switch gear, preventing the switch from being moved - known as the “lockout step” - Suratkar felt it was safe enough to only place a sign on the switch, warning against it being moved – known as the “tagout step”.

The rules required both steps in order to eliminate or minimise risk.

In an interview with his then-employer, Suratkar said he felt it was safe to conduct only the tagging part of the two-step process, but the ERA said as an experienced registered electrician he should have had no difficulty understanding and following the rules.

He had also been instructed and trained in a process his employer considered to be necessary for safety.

“The same rules are incorporated into national regulatory standards governing the practice of electricians,” ERA member Alastair Dumbleton said.

NZME has approached Suratkar’s lawyer seeking comment but is yet to hear. It has also sought comment from Inghams.

Dumbleton said Inghams’ safety rules were plain, entirely comprehensible and given the invisibility of electrical current and the unforgiving nature of electrocution, “inarguably reasonable”.

“It was not suggested to the authority that the rules were deficient in the way they were expressed, or that following them could create an unexpected situation of danger,” Dumbleton said.

However, the ERA considered that Inghams might have recognised Suratkar’s 13 years of service when considering disciplinary action.

During that time there had been no disciplinary problems before receiving the June 2018 warning, but Inghams might also have thought that given his length of time on the job Suratkar was sufficiently experienced and familiar with safety rules to have known better than to breach them, the determination said.

The ERA credited the employer for conducting a thorough and fair investigation it described as “unrushed and well documented”.

It had looked into whether the 64-year-old’s dismissal was not justified and that perhaps he might have had a different type of grievance.

The employer told the ERA that it had dismissed Suratkar because of a critical factor around whether he could be relied upon in the future to follow safety rules generally.

Any “favourable sign” that he understood the rules and guaranteed to follow them may have made the difference between a decision to dismiss and a decision to impose a lesser sanction, the ERA said.

Suratkar’s claim that higher standards of operation had been placed on him than on other staff was not substantiated.

The ERA said the large Waitoa workplace appeared to be well managed, including the work of electricians, maintenance and production staff.

It found that the dismissal on notice was within the range of a disciplinary response open to the employer. The Employment Court recently found that issues of health and safety had a special status when it came to justification for dismissal and were “not just another ingredient in the mix”.

The ERA said the process, which allowed Suratkar to provide feedback, was a genuine offer to ensure that he had put forward everything he wanted to say to explain or mitigate his misconduct.

Dumbleton said that to their ultimate cost, some employees held back from putting forward excuses or points in mitigation so as “not to make waves” or “antagonise” the employer in the hope that matters will blow over.

The authority found that Suratkar did not have a personal grievance arising from his dismissal or the circumstances surrounding it and that ultimately the dismissal was justifiable.