McDonald’s waitress wins £3,000 compensation for being fired

Sarah Finch, 19, was fired for gross misconduct after giving extra chocolate topping to a workmate on a 99p McFlurry. Miss Finch took the McDonald’s restaurant to an employment tribunal after her bosses accused her of giving away food without payment. The unfair dismissal claim was settled out of court and she was awarded more than £3,000 in compensation. Miss Finch said in a statement: “I was dismissed on the grounds of gross misconduct. I was accused of stealing food. “The matter was trivial, in that I provided a fellow employee, who was purchasing a dessert, a generous sprinkling of chocolate pieces. “There is no standard for such measures, they are always imprecise and will vary among customers. “My colleague had asked me: ‘Make it a nice one’. So the measure I gave erred on the side of more than, rather than less than, the mean.” Miss Finch, an accountant’s daughter, earned £180-a-week at the branch of McDonald’s in Carmarthen, West Wales, where she had worked for 18-months. She made an application for unfair dismissal against franchise company Lonetree who run a string of McDonald’s restaurants. But both sides reached an out-of-court settlement after the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service was called in. Darren Newman, Miss Finch’s solicitor, said: “With the assistance of ACAS we have reached a resolution, the tribunal is being withdrawn and there is no additional mention of liability. “The parties have agreed not to disclose any more information apart from that the issue has now been resolved.” Miss Finch, from Kidwelly, West Wales, now studying for A-levels in chemistry, physics and biology, was described as an “exceptional employee” before being sacked. Part of the terms of the settlement is that Sarah will get a good reference from McDonalds. A spokesman for the McDonalds franchise said: “This matter has now been resolved to the satisfaction of both parties. The Employment Tribunal case has been withdrawn. No admission of liability was made.”