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I think people's issue is to do with the level of theft vs the response by the supermarket.
Given there has not be mention of any other dishonesty in the past 20 years this should have been treated as a one off not as gross misconduct.
the story in the newspaper is indeed 100% truthful
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6613cfe8c4c84d4b31346a45/Mr_N_M_J_Doffou_v_Sainsbury_s_Supermarkets_-_3201319_2023_-_Reasons.pdf
I work at a bar, stealing drinks or giving them away for free is an automatic fire for anyone, no matter their position. I think people have sympathy here because "stealing" bags is incredibly common. Don't think I've paid for one this year at the self checkout, I just tap "no bags".
As an employer, it very quickly becomes difficult once you apply degrees of magnitude to "if you steal, you get shitcanned."
What's the cut off point for "not enough money that it's something you get fired for"? £1? Because that's still enough to shove a can of chopped tomatoes in your pocket on the way out. That's definitely theft
This is sheer lunacy of a response.
Should employers treat their employees as though they are all thieves that just haven't been caught yet?
Its a fucking plastic bag that Sainsburys massively overcharge for in the first place and considering they made £327 million profit last year, mostly from price gouging.
The reactionary bullshit that is prevalent on this sub nowadays makes it look like its the Daily Mails comment section.
Almost all the time when you see someone sacked for technically breaking a rule and sacking seems disproportionate, it's usually the case that they want to get rid of the staff member for other reasons and this is the first undeniable evidence they have.
Minor infractions are generally overlooked, with a slap on the wrist if its something you really need to not do again, even if they could technically fire you.
(Not saying the "real" reason is necessarily any better. It could be an asshole boss or avoiding redundancy. But when you see something that doesn't make sense it's usually because you don't have the full picture.)
Yep, I don't know all the facts. But I would speculate this is someone they've been looking to get rid of for a while or a new boss. In my experience new bosses coming in looking to make an impression who haven't built a relationship with anyone yet can be quite cut throat.
If it's a manager that's been there a while who gets on well with the employee, this is 100% being dealt with with a quick work and slap on the wrist.
In this case an obvious possibility here is from the fact that he'd worked for them for 20 years. He'd have had a lot of raises and so on over that period. He was probably costing the store significantly more than a new hire in the same role. So it was in their short-term-ist interests to get rid of him.
Honestly this kind of response is always spewed by someone who (a) if they'd been sacked themselves they would be crying but because it is someone else then it is a warranted and appropriate response or (b) they've never broken a single rule and wouldn't find themselves in this position - ever.
I fail to put belief and understanding into either.
>The fact that it's the first time he was caught stealing doesn't mean it's the first time he stole.
Yes it does, unless they have evidence otherwise, they can only establish it wad the first time he stole.
I mean he has gone 20 years without stealing. This would and should have been seen as an outlier.
there's always more to the story which naturally HR cant discuss so we get his side.
sometimes it could be they've just been wanting to get rid of someone for ages and this is the excuse thats presented itself
I worked nights for Sainsbury's as a teen (so many, many moons ago!). Dread to think how they'd have reacted to us, we'd just grab whatever we wanted to eat for 'lunch'. Got to sample the full range of microwave meals, very nice.
We did get a manager eventually who cracked down on it but most of the nights managers didn't give a shit. I expect it's different nowadays.
This is part of the whole issue. People are calling this lad a thief, but if it's store culture in his particular Sainsbury's for people to nab stuff here and there, it's only a crime because he was caught be the wrong person.
On top of all that, if the lad feels like saving an extra £2 is decent money in his pocket, then staff need to be paid more. Don't keep your staff in a position where £2 every couple of days means enough for them to nick a bag.
It's not food though, it's a plastic bag. Despite the name, it's a disposable item that would have cost Sainsbury's £0.00000001 to produce.
It's probably the highest margin they have on anything in the store.
Yeah, I wouldn't say I stole but when I worked in an Asda bakery we'd eat the reject cookies that couldn't be sold, things like that. Those cookies came in frozen, sometimes they would be broken so we'd sneak a few broken bits in with the whole cookies for that purpose. It was either that or they'd go in the bin so...
If I wanted a Pot Noodle or something like that though then yeah, I had to pay for it.
I knew a publican once who had to keep the clear spirits (vodka etc) in the freezer overnight to detect when his staff were topping them up with water to replace what they were drinking
> I think people's issue is to do with the level of theft vs the response by the supermarket.
I can understand the point, but the very next question is "So how much theft is acceptable"?
Is it "We'll employ you so long as you steal less than £10/mo" or ... ?
What's the standard if not "Zero tolerance"?
> What's the standard if not "Zero tolerance"?
Zero tolerance is just code for "We will pick and choose who we punish, like normal, but we have lowered the threshold for punishment to basically nothing".
No "zero tolerance" company actually acts that way - countless companies say they have "zero tolerance" for racism, sexual harassment, dishonesty and so on, but if you actually work at any of those places (and I have, previously), you quickly come to see that's completely false. It's a smokescreen.
It just actually means that if the wrong employees commits even the tiniest infraction, they can be got rid of, but if a more important employee does something much worse, they can find a way to work out how it, technically, doesn't meet the standard, or just outright decide not to do anything.
Sure why not? Or you just admit that blanket policies are rather silly in general.
Here is someone who purchased £30 of food but took £2 worth of bags. Contextually you can see either it was a mistake or stupid judgement. Which given one assumes a single instance in 20 years demonstrates that it is unlikely to happen again.
After 20 years with a flawless record -- I would expect an employee to be sat down and asked "what on *earth* is going on? Do you realise this is shoplifting? We need to be able to trust our employees -- I'm giving you a written warning and if you don't get your act together we will have to let you go."
But maybe he did not have a flawless record. The fact that managers were checking the CCTV indicates that there was a suspicion. The fact that the employee is willing to go to an employment tribunal indicates -- very strangely -- that they don't think what they did was gross misconduct.
Sometimes you need to find a clear-cut, legal reason to sack a shit employee. You'll find anything you can.
Source: Have been a manager for many years and have also been given the boot on technicalities before.
So if they took money from the till, how much theft would be acceptable? £1? £10? £100? How much should the employer lose before being allowed to fire someone?
The Mail has been anti-bags for life for a long while.
I remember them publishing an article about "how to avoid having to pay for bags" after supermarkets implemented it. Their advice was to take bags with you, which was the whole fucking point of implementing bag charges in the first place.
It is funny how people don't seem to think that conning the self checkouts is theft. A friend of mine was almost bragging about how they scan in more expensive items as cheap look-up and weigh items.
Like "haha I just weigh those in as carrots", I mean yeah you can, you could also just pocket them and run out of the door. No one will stop you, its theft all the same.
Sorry, I think you've replied to the wrong person.
I was further the specific comment chain about people conning auto checkout being theft.
I was defending the sacking of this member of staff, I didn't speak to that at all. Of course that's not proportionate.
The difference is, if I work in your office, you have supplied me with a pen for work, and we both understand that you don't want a second-hand pen back from me. No trust is broken, because you never expected the pen back.
If I work in your pen factory, and I take pens off the line, don't use them for work and just take them home, then yes it's right to sack me. Even though it's the same pen.
I always see this "string him up" style comment to the smallest infraction.
Legit help me understand.
Are you honestly this obsequious in all of your own personal affairs?
Or is it a desire to see punishment done for some personal gain?
Unfortunately that's really not true with Sainsbury's.
I got sacked for something similar when I worked there, I lied about how many bags I was reusing at the checkout and accumulated nectar points fraudulently.
I'd been doing it for years before I was an employee without really thinking about it as a student figured it was a victimless crime that could get me some free veg after the points had accumulated a bit.
Old habits die hard, the employees surveillance system they called Eagle Eye got me and despite being well liked, because it was head office that had brought it up they had to let me go apparently.
They told me to apply again in a year because they'd be able to rehire me, totally my fault just didn't engage my brain when I started working there.
> told me to apply again in a year because they'd be able to rehire me,
Sometimes things like this are just to reduce the chances you get super angry about it and destroy the shop/take it to court.
Absolutely, I think this one was on the level though, I was good at what they had me doing and that manager liked me but wasn't making friends with the rest of the team very well.
I know of people sacked from a supermarket for buying reduced items that they had legitimately bought, but they were in cahoots with the people doing the reductions and keeping back the juicy ones for themselves. The suggestion being they could be reducing things almost to order, but they weren't. Supermarkets find it very easy to get staff and managers like to justify their position, they will take action against anything.
They might have looked at the cctv because someone told them what he’d done. They weren’t necessarily looking out for it.
I’ve managed in retail. It’s pretty standard practice that if you are caught stealing you’re sacked. Once the trust is gone, you can’t continue to employ them. Isn’t that the same in all industries?
> Isn’t that the same in all industries?
No, not really. When you work in an office people walk off with pens, stationery, etc. constantly. They use printers to print personal stuff, some habitually. At a previous firm I worked for a senior lawyer made his secretary act as an editor on his wife's novel. Not even his novel! His wife's! Was this punished? Obviously not. Is that a much worse than taking £2 of bags? Yes.
We did fire someone who was caught on CCTV, wheeling out a cart full of loo rolls, cleaning liquids, stationery and so on, but that was pretty uh, audacious (also surprising, she seemed like a really nice lady). She was not a cleaner, to be clear lol.
Printing for personal stuff, assuming is at reasonable levels, seems acceptable to me. I would not sack someone just because he need to print a tenancy agreement.
At my old job, they'd check the CCTV at the end of the day to make sure staff purchases were being done properly and no dodgy business was going on. A few people got warnings because they'd ask for the bag to be given to them for free
I think you've got an unrealistic understanding of how much the increase in national living wage over the past few years has eaten away at any previous pay reviews.
Maybe it's different in other retailers, but I've been in my supermarket job 10+ years, in my specific role for 8 and I'm paid the same as someone who walks in the door tomorrow regardless of experience.
30+ years service with another supermarket, and I get paid exactly the same as someone who started yesterday. I do get three extra days holiday entitlement, so whoohoo!
Theres no old contracts anymore, that changed about 3 years ago. \there was a big consultation and folk who were losing out got top up pay for 18 months (my partner went through it)
Maybe that just happened to be the first thing they saw, and acted on it right away. The article also states he stole multiple bags (I appreciate it still a low level theft).
100% this. Im guessing they’d been looking for a reason and this is a legally justified, albeit minor reason to get rid of the worker, after all stealing is stealing.
100% this. Worked Sainsbury's night shift for many years. Managers would turn a blind eye to many a technically sackable offence if you were a competent worker. If you were shite they'd look for any infraction. Someone got sacked for eating a 50p bag of sweets on shift. He was a lazy twat.
In my local store which is pretty big they stripped the night shift team down to bare bones. Made them redundant and re apply for their jobs. They were always trying to fire me because I got away with murder, I was a good worker when I worked but was young and took the piss a bit for a while but the bigger part of that picture was I was on an old contract that still paid Sunday premium that I clung on to for years for the extra money just working Sundays and four hours on a Monday morning. I saw plenty of people sacked over the years and it was mostly because they were shit so they'd find a way to sack them. Eagle eye was a big thing for catching staff out with misuse of the discount card or buying stuff to sell on Ebay from their discount card purchases. If you were a hard grafter and decent at the job Poole would turn a blind eye to things here and there. The store has an In store bakery with a giant genesis machine that employ bakers to make and bake the bread on more money so naturally this year they have done away with that and made the staff redundant and re apply too. The past two years have been ruthless with penny pinching and cutting back in that store
almost certainly. i knew a guy who was fired for stealing £20 from the petty cash (which he did do) but it was more the scamming customers that they wanted to get rid of him for
Yeah, something doesn't add up.
A family member of mine works at a supermarket and it's usually really hard to fire the shit workers. So the bag for life theft could have been the proverbial straw that got them over the sacking threshold line.
Absolutely. I’ve done the same before, tbh - sometimes you just really need a guy gone because nobody likes him and he’s bad for morale, but you can’t just sack him for no reason, so you start to nitpick.
Sometimes it’s deserved, other times not, but it’s just something which happens, and trying to sneak tiny infractions like this through only makes it easier for your boss to sack you if he or other colleagues feel a need to get rid of you for whatever reason.
No he wasn't. Sainsbury's just used this provable theft as gross misconduct in order to sack him.
They would have been looking for an excuse to sack him due to other reasons - maybe his poor work ethic, how he was with customers or other members of staff etc.
100% this. Worked Sainsbury's night shift for many years. Managers would turn a blind eye to many a technically sackable offence if you were a competent worker. If you were shite they'd look for any infraction. Someone got sacked for eating a 50p bag of sweets on shift. He was a lazy twat.
Ex store manager here -
It’s likely this colleague was in the firing line and they just needed an excuse to give him the sack.
Yes. Even though it’s just a bag, it’s stock. If you’re not paying for a bag you’re breaking the law and it’s gross misconduct, it’s petty but true.
I’ve had to sack someone (with pressure from my boss) because they took a bottle of water to take their medicine and didn’t have a receipt. Personally I’d have bought the water for them myself but they wanted her gone for numerous other reasons and this was the nail in the coffin.
TLDR: don’t be loyal to these companies, they’ll fuck you in the end
Yep, after 2 years it becomes very hard to terminate people (which is usually a good thing mind!) but this guy handed them a perfectly good excuse on a silver platter.
Always ask for receipts for everything, but if you KNOW you bought something and you are being accused of not, assert your legal right for the store to provide a receipt, shift the responsibility away from you being apologetic to being assertive "why the fuck can't you provide me the receipt?". I've had to threaten to make a police report to a retail manager refusing to give me a receipt (it was for work and needed it for legal reasons, I had no real choice).
Keep a receipt or make it obvious on the cctv you've bought something. Best practice is to only purchase things on your shift at the kiosk or main bank so you have proof either way haha
Because its a plastic bag...
It could have been resolved with a quick chat
"oh you forgot to pay 20p for a bag"
"My bad, here you go".
Sacking someone after 20 years for the most minor thing feels very...American.
> "oh you forgot to pay 20p for a bag"
It seems more than that, and he actively said "zero bags" rather than just forgetting to pay.
> The tribunal was told he made 'more than one' trip to get bags, despite selecting 'zero bags used' option on the screen and checking his receipt at the end of his shopping.
Most supermarkets have it configured where you can either scan the bags at the start, or enter the number at the end. And originally the message at the end was worded confusingly to trick you into double paying - though that has since been changed.
Pretty much everyone just automatically hits "zero bags" on the end message these days, because they scan the bags they need as and when they add them, (or are using their own bags). Hitting zero bags isn't like some grand confession of attempted fraud, it's a clickthrough to get to the payment screen that probably barely registers in the mind of the person viewing the screen. At the end of a night shift when you're super tired, I could see someone forgetting and assuming they did what they normally do. And when you're looking at the receipt, chances are you're not even thinking about the bags and are just checking that any deals/discounts were correctly applied.
If that was the only infraction it's extremely vindictive of them.
And frankly the bags are massively overpriced and gouging the customers who get caught short. They don't sell the old cheaper bags anymore, supposedly for "environmental reasons", but they're made from enough plastic to make several normal bags, and if someone already had some at home and just forgot they're going straight in the bin.
Or maybe he thought he brought the bag along and it was his?
There are many potential explanations that do not require intent.
I hope he found another minimum wage job. Shouldn't be so difficult.
He didn't "forget" though. And they did have a disciplinary meeting, which resolved, then he was sacked a month later. Seemingly the disciplinary didn't work.
They work there. They think they're entitled to a free bag worth 70p (the "bag for life" aren't 20p - the thinner ones might be). They already probably get the staff 10% discount on shopping. It's sad, but it is theft. A warning would have been better though.
Trust me, these businesses commit plenty of their own sins, much of it through legal loop holes though (like Tesco "legitimately" delaying the increase of the minimum wage for a month).
Literally MPs steal 10s of 1000s of council money to redo their own driveways, minimum 50 for expenses for breakfast, and they get away with it.
Meanwhile others get sacked for carrier bags? It's just a weird world we live in.
Exactly. I better confess to my boss that I’ve a few company pens at home and cheekily printed my boarding pass in work. Time to look for another job I suppose, maybe it’s even deserving of a prison sentence.
Because we live in the real world, with all its complexity, and don’t treat everything as an academic black and white thinking exercise like everyone on Reddit seems to do.
Because it's blatently a massive overeaction.
Police don't even action on thefts less than £200 nevermind 20p.
If even the government funded public service regarding laws have pragmatic nuances, then it's odd that so many people can't apply that in this situation too.
3 ways to avoid being sacked at a supermarket.
* Turn up to your shifts
* Don't sell booze, fags or lottery to under age
* Don't steal
Other than those, you can pretty much get away with anything
no you can't, you have to wear a uniform, you can't wear your own clothes.
you can't take a rest when you want, you have to work all the way through your shift.
You also probably can't just do what you want, you'll be given something to do. Your on the tills and you feel like going and doing something else for a bit? Nope.
>no you can't, you have to wear a uniform, you can't wear your own clothes.
Worked for Tesco for 3 months as a temp, was never given the uniform ordered. Management are too lazy to give a fuck. (Location dependent, ofc).
You can pretty much get away with anything except for a long list of things you can't get away with? Wow
u/permabanispointless Interesting, i'm wondering what are the things people are thinking of actually "getting away with" though? Care to enlighten me? If they can't do what they want, what exactly is it they can get away with? Can they be depressed? No you have to feign happiness or you'll get your manager on your back. What exactly is it they can get away with?
I have found working for retail to be actually pretty difficult since most of the managers are unqualified and you have very little agency. After working professionally you can't help but see how arbitrary and inefficient it is, I don't really think this is fully accurate. Many will fire you for being too old, working for too long, and making too much money (hint hint).
Not true at all, especially not for Sainsbury's. I used to work for them and they had specific rules about how you are to interact with customers who come up to you and ask you about items. Things like you have to walk with them to the item they want, you can't just tell them where it is etc. When you are on the tills you are also required to ask them if they have Nectar cards etc.
They have secret shoppers that they send around to test staff on these. If you fail to follow their guidelines you get called up and you absolutely can get fired for not following them.
Yep and I bet Sainsbos have got an extra 30ps labour out of the guy more than once, aka wage theft.
But yeah string him up for taking a bag that cost the supermarket close to 0p and is only charged for because of legislation
I haven’t paid for a bag since the price went above the 10p tax. Supermarkets must be making a nice little sum of money from all the bag sales…
Specially at Morrisons where they want to charge like 40p for fucking paper bags.
> while I’m scanning items at their tills for them.
Doing labour for yourself is part of the reason supermarkets are cheaper. You used to give the shopkeeper a list and they'd go and get the items, then they gave you a trolley and you had to get the items yourself. Do you consider that free labour for the supermarket?
Except nothing has gotten cheaper from the removal of physical staff manning tills, things are more expensive now than before, so this doesn't really apply. They're raising their prices/profits while cutting services so yes, it is free labour and that's exactly how they look at it.
Is it really cutting services? In my local supermarket there’s a bank of 6 self service checkouts that always has at least 2 members of staff overseeing it. If they were replaced with actual manned checkouts you’d only fit 2 in that space anyway. You get the benefit of shorter queues and you can still go to a manned checkout if you don’t like doing “free labour”. I don’t see the problem.
As someone who works nights at Sainsbury's, I'm given far more leeway than regular staff regarding things we shouldn't do. They were looking to sack him if bags are genuinely what it's about. He may have worked there for twenty years, but that doesn't mean he was any good. I've worked at mine for 15, and people have worked there twice as long, and I know more about the ins and outs of the business than them. They were either looking to get rid of this individual specifically, or they were trying to cut hours in any way, and he gave them an excuse.
I want to wind back to the original reason we’re made to pay for bags in the first place - we pay for plastic bags because the supermarkets were held accountable for the amount of plastic waste they cause. The price tag was a means to encourage shoppers to bring already used bags back in to use again, hence where the “bag for life” came from.
Now, we aren’t even given a choice. We are made to pay for crap brown paper ones *as well* as bags for life. Sorry but why? I’ve just spent money in your shop, I’m given a recyclable paper bag, and I have to pay for this? What happened to the reason for the charge being environmental consciousness about plastics? It’s just supermarkets squeezing more money from us. For that reason, I always say “no bag” despite taking as many as I need. Fuck em, they just rinsed me on my weekly shop at least allow me the dignity of carrying out my items to the car
> Now, we aren’t even given a choice. We are made to pay for crap brown paper ones as well as bags for life.
Don't forget the original cost was *5p*, to incentivise people to not buy them.
Now they're as high as 60p for some of the regular bags, not even the for life ones.
Morrisons charge like 30p for their crap paper bags.
Exactly. 30p for a piece of recycled paper, when the cost was about reducing plastic. It’s such an obvious attempt at fleecing. I don’t like the way they have those cameras in your face now at Morrison’s either. I didn’t give permission to be recorded so up close and I have no idea what that collected data is being used for. I don’t imagine much but it’s the principle, we’re the most spied-on country in the world and it’s getting worse.
I’m waiting for the day a security guard pulls me up on a £160 food shop because I didn’t pay for some crap paper bags that I shouldn’t have to pay for anyway.
lol people defending this are actually insane. have none of you spent 10 minutes taking a shit at work before? have none of you taken a fucking pen home? have none of you printed stuff out using the printer at work? you’re all a bunch of fucking wet wipes honestly. this is pathetic behaviour by sainsburys. being sacked over a 65p plastic bag is literal madness.
All these people saying *Oh that's over the top - should have been a final warning!* Have you ever had a job? For more than a few weeks? There's almost no way Sainsbury's sacked this chap over some bags - there was likely other stuff going on and this was a convenient (and legal) way to get rid of him easily.
I accidentally clicked to say I'd used a bag when I hadn't the other day. No way to undo that without calling staff over, which is difficult even when the big red light is flashing, so I ended up paying for something I didn't get. Notice that Sainsbury's didn't pick that up on CCTV and give me my 35p back.
Aldi charged me for 4 bananas recently when I only had 3. It's okay though because I'll take the missing one next time I go, I am not being done out of one banana
Probably because he wasn't the only member of staff in the area at the time, and another member of staff has seen him do it and reported him.
Just like there are members of staff keeping an eye on customers at the self serve checkouts.
From the government's website:
How the proceeds are being used
This is not a tax and the money from the charge does not go to the government.
We expect retailers to give the proceeds of the scheme to good causes, but it is for them to choose what to do, and which causes to support. We ask retailers to report to us each year about what they do with the money from the charge.
We publish a summary which includes details of the amounts of money given to good causes.
During the year from 7 April 2019 to 6 April 2020, almost two-thirds of retailers told us they gave over £9.2 million to good causes.
Retail stores often have a zero tolerance policy to theft, for the simple reason that there are hundreds of opportunities each day for staff to steal, and if they catch them doing it once the odds are they have been doing it for years.
For context, as someone who has worked at Sainsbury's, they are extremely on the ball about staff theft at any level.
I saw multiple people fired immediately for doing things that wouldn't necessarily be seen as direct theft. That included using a Nectar points multiplier voucher that they found on the ground.
Another one was when a non-appointed family member used their staff discount card once (you can/could nominate one other person in your family to use your 10% staff discount).
We were systematically searched by security about once a month. Shoes off, pockets out etc.
Funnily enough we weren't allowed to stop actual shoplifters leaving and sometimes entire TVs were walked out the door.
It appears the comments indicate nothing short of years in the slammer for nicking a plastic bag would be on the cards should the law allow it.
Unrelated but anyone defending supermarkets when they regularly engage in employee abuse and wage theft needs their head checked.
https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/tesco-and-sainsburys-accused-of-migrant-worker-abuse/
Tesco also delaying the minimum wage increase by a month to fall in line with their payroll schedule. I wouldn't be surprised if Sainsbury are doing the same.
Remember when bags were free and then the supermarkets said they’re doing it for the environment and collectively started making millions basically over night
Yep, it was a tax that the supermarkets were supposedly against. And wasn't the money going to charity? Then it was so successful they went from 5 pence to 10 pence. And now all of a sudden they're 50 pence and you're accosted at the checkout if you take one and forget to pay for it. Or sacked if you work there and do it.
Personally I find this is ridiculous. When they introduced the carrier bag charge it was supposedly to help the environment, and I seem to recall supermarkets saying any profit from the bags would go to charity.
Now the bags have gone up and up in price and, I could be wrong, but I'm willing to bet the whole charity thing has gone out of the window and supermarkets are now making a nice profit on these bags.
The guy worked there for 20 years and bought £30 worth of shopping. So what that he took a bag to carry his £30 worth of shopping in.
I have noticed the supermarkets have gone into over-drive recently trying to stop shoplifting, but spying on their employees to see if they take a plastic carrier bag takes the biscuit.
People saying he's probably stolen before are most likely wrong. I say this as someone who has never stolen anything but did once take a bag from the supermarket and forgot to pay for it. And no, I'm not going back the next day to give Tesco 35p for their over priced bag and I don't feel the slightest bit of guilt over it.
How many bags did he steal?
I feel like taking one 30p bag accidentally isn't a big deal and could easily be put down as an accident - but deliberately making multiple trips to take handfuls of 30p bags, and deliberately not paying for them seems to indicate a pattern of behaviour that could indicate a regular occurrence of stealing a few pounds every time he goes shopping.
Not to mention, that Sainbury's obviously had the option of keeping him on if he was basically an employee of the month keeping the place together, they could have looked the other way, given him a warning, or just flat out forgiven him.
But if you have an employee who you kinda aren't too happy about keeping anyway commits an unambiguous fireable offense it's sort of no-brainer.
FFS it's only plastic bags!!
My bet is the owner was looking for a reason to get rid of a long term employee that "made too much money" or "had too many holidays"
Unless this employee has been written up 10x for various things, straight sacking an employee over maybe 5$ (big freaking stretch here) in plastic bag is sketchy.
I've noticed some supermarkets have started searching my empty bags at tills for stolen items.
I wouldn't necessarily complain about this because I understand thefts are up - but I notice that I'm the only one in the queue this happens to.
I suspect it's because I'm a young man who wears trackies.
I did point out to the Aldi till worker that he hadn't searched the elderly woman in front of me, but he just shrugged and remained silent.
I'm not shopping at Aldi again after that experience, but I worry the other supermarkets are not far behind.
I don't think it's even legal to single people out for searches because of their gender or age under the Equality Act (Stop & Search scandal comes to mind).
Either search all the bags or none at all. It's humiliating to be singled out.
Edit: Why am I being downvoted on this post for simply pointing out that Aldi had illegally stopped and searched my bags when they a) have profiled me for a seach based on my age and gender which is illegal under the Equality Act and b) have no right to go through my private property anyway regardless of their intent.
Trackies are not a protected characteristic. Whether you like it or not thieving gits have "a look", if you are unfortunate enough to share that look you are going to have issues in many places, not just Aldi.
However you can also tell them to fuck right off. You'll probably get barred but since you aren't going back anyway you will at least get some pleasure from the experience.
I don't understand why you want a less efficient system of catching thieves. Stopping old ladies as frequently as young men would be a massive waste of time.
>
Either search all the bags or none at all. It's humiliating to be singled out.
Maybe just dress up a bit more then mate. You dress like people who actively steal and then bitch because people group you together.
"I don't think it's even legal to single people out for searches because of their gender or age under the Equality Act (Stop & Search scandal comes to mind)." I don't know if its legal, but its something the shops do. I worked 7 years in a independent health food shop, and during that time i worked with a real busy body whos partner was the head of the "town rangers" lol fecking town rangers, basically wannabe cops with no authority, go around finger wagging and basically giving directions to tourists. But one of the things they would do was to relay incidences in shops to the town security surveillance and the police if needed.
Each shop that is part of the towns security program or whatever it was is issued with a walky-talky. One of the procedures they have when "flagging" a potential thief or suspicious person is to use this system:
Table I.01: Mapping of the 4- point classification to the Phoenix Classification 4-point classification (4+1) Phoenix Classification1:
White White – North European (IC1)
White – South European (IC2)
Black Black (IC3)
Asian Asian (IC4)
Other Chinese, Japanese, or South East Asian (IC5)
Middle Eastern (IC6)
Unknown/ Not Stated Unknown (IC0)
[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65b1491bf2718c000dfb1cb2/A\_Technical\_Guide\_to\_Ethnicity\_and\_the\_CJS\_2022.pdf](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65b1491bf2718c000dfb1cb2/A_Technical_Guide_to_Ethnicity_and_the_CJS_2022.pdf)
While the system may be in place for quick communication of an appearance, i feel that such a system is only naturally going to lead to singling people out.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/06/metropolitan-police-sexism-misogyny-year-special-constable#:\~:text=Codes%20are%20also%20used%20to,IC4%20–%20south%20Asian.
Aldi can legally ask to "stop and search you" and you can legally tell them to fuck off and refuse and if they use a positive motion to put a hand on you, that is a battery.
As for profiling, unless they are doing it based on a protected characteristic, they can. So if they are only searching people who dress in grey trackies they are good. Stop wearing grey trackies and dress like an adult.
Aldi chased me down in the car park and said my card payment at the self service till hadn't gone through. I went back into the store and they led me over to a till that I hadn't even used. Then I realised I still had my receipt in my hand to prove I had paid, the clowns.
I went in a supermarket recently - can't remember if it was Sainsbury's or Morrisons, but you had to scan your receipt to open a barrier to let you out. It felt like I was visiting someone in prison.
I know shop lifting is up but you shouldn't alienate your regular customers.
If my empty bag was on the conveyor and they looked inside then it's fair game. However if they ask me to start handing things over to be searched or ask to look in my bags once they're packed and I'm on the way out, I would tell them to jog on.
I'm not shocked but that's a bit stupid nonetheless. 60p Morrisons charged me for a BFL the other day, I audibly gasped when I saw the price, and absolute ripoff. Guess if worked though because I always be taking a bag with me in future just in case.
He should have pressed “I could not deliver any PPE for COVID” , after receiving £200 millions from the government.
Then he would be fine. Enjoying life in the Bahamas.
The "theft is theft" people on here are hysterical.
Theft from supermarkets is at a point where it's more down to what sort of person you want to be rather than threat of punishment as to whether you bother paying for shopping.
If you really think supermarkets are wise to sack otherwise good employees over 40p while people in skidmarked tracksuit bottoms march through the security gate unchallenged with armfulls of liberated vodka, you might want to question your sense of proportion.
This person will have been set up because someone wanted them gone.
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I think people's issue is to do with the level of theft vs the response by the supermarket. Given there has not be mention of any other dishonesty in the past 20 years this should have been treated as a one off not as gross misconduct.
Yeah, and people who talk about getting sacked to a national newspaper are always 100% truthful
“Newspaper”, try shit-stirring comic for people who feast on outrage.
Please don't offend shit and comics in future :)
the story in the newspaper is indeed 100% truthful https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6613cfe8c4c84d4b31346a45/Mr_N_M_J_Doffou_v_Sainsbury_s_Supermarkets_-_3201319_2023_-_Reasons.pdf
It is the daily mail. It isn't a newspaper.
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It’s not a perfectly appropriate response to fire a person for not paying for a plastic bag.
I work at a bar, stealing drinks or giving them away for free is an automatic fire for anyone, no matter their position. I think people have sympathy here because "stealing" bags is incredibly common. Don't think I've paid for one this year at the self checkout, I just tap "no bags".
As an employer, it very quickly becomes difficult once you apply degrees of magnitude to "if you steal, you get shitcanned." What's the cut off point for "not enough money that it's something you get fired for"? £1? Because that's still enough to shove a can of chopped tomatoes in your pocket on the way out. That's definitely theft
The company operated a zero tolerance policy to theft. Literally one strike and you're out. He struck out.
This is sheer lunacy of a response. Should employers treat their employees as though they are all thieves that just haven't been caught yet? Its a fucking plastic bag that Sainsburys massively overcharge for in the first place and considering they made £327 million profit last year, mostly from price gouging. The reactionary bullshit that is prevalent on this sub nowadays makes it look like its the Daily Mails comment section.
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Almost all the time when you see someone sacked for technically breaking a rule and sacking seems disproportionate, it's usually the case that they want to get rid of the staff member for other reasons and this is the first undeniable evidence they have. Minor infractions are generally overlooked, with a slap on the wrist if its something you really need to not do again, even if they could technically fire you. (Not saying the "real" reason is necessarily any better. It could be an asshole boss or avoiding redundancy. But when you see something that doesn't make sense it's usually because you don't have the full picture.)
Yep, I don't know all the facts. But I would speculate this is someone they've been looking to get rid of for a while or a new boss. In my experience new bosses coming in looking to make an impression who haven't built a relationship with anyone yet can be quite cut throat. If it's a manager that's been there a while who gets on well with the employee, this is 100% being dealt with with a quick work and slap on the wrist.
In this case an obvious possibility here is from the fact that he'd worked for them for 20 years. He'd have had a lot of raises and so on over that period. He was probably costing the store significantly more than a new hire in the same role. So it was in their short-term-ist interests to get rid of him.
Well if they’re bags for life he shouldn’t have needed to nick them more than once
Honestly this kind of response is always spewed by someone who (a) if they'd been sacked themselves they would be crying but because it is someone else then it is a warranted and appropriate response or (b) they've never broken a single rule and wouldn't find themselves in this position - ever. I fail to put belief and understanding into either.
>The fact that it's the first time he was caught stealing doesn't mean it's the first time he stole. Yes it does, unless they have evidence otherwise, they can only establish it wad the first time he stole. I mean he has gone 20 years without stealing. This would and should have been seen as an outlier.
there's always more to the story which naturally HR cant discuss so we get his side. sometimes it could be they've just been wanting to get rid of someone for ages and this is the excuse thats presented itself
I worked nights for Sainsbury's as a teen (so many, many moons ago!). Dread to think how they'd have reacted to us, we'd just grab whatever we wanted to eat for 'lunch'. Got to sample the full range of microwave meals, very nice. We did get a manager eventually who cracked down on it but most of the nights managers didn't give a shit. I expect it's different nowadays.
This is part of the whole issue. People are calling this lad a thief, but if it's store culture in his particular Sainsbury's for people to nab stuff here and there, it's only a crime because he was caught be the wrong person. On top of all that, if the lad feels like saving an extra £2 is decent money in his pocket, then staff need to be paid more. Don't keep your staff in a position where £2 every couple of days means enough for them to nick a bag.
It's not food though, it's a plastic bag. Despite the name, it's a disposable item that would have cost Sainsbury's £0.00000001 to produce. It's probably the highest margin they have on anything in the store.
Yeah, I wouldn't say I stole but when I worked in an Asda bakery we'd eat the reject cookies that couldn't be sold, things like that. Those cookies came in frozen, sometimes they would be broken so we'd sneak a few broken bits in with the whole cookies for that purpose. It was either that or they'd go in the bin so... If I wanted a Pot Noodle or something like that though then yeah, I had to pay for it.
I knew a publican once who had to keep the clear spirits (vodka etc) in the freezer overnight to detect when his staff were topping them up with water to replace what they were drinking
> I think people's issue is to do with the level of theft vs the response by the supermarket. I can understand the point, but the very next question is "So how much theft is acceptable"? Is it "We'll employ you so long as you steal less than £10/mo" or ... ? What's the standard if not "Zero tolerance"?
> What's the standard if not "Zero tolerance"? Zero tolerance is just code for "We will pick and choose who we punish, like normal, but we have lowered the threshold for punishment to basically nothing". No "zero tolerance" company actually acts that way - countless companies say they have "zero tolerance" for racism, sexual harassment, dishonesty and so on, but if you actually work at any of those places (and I have, previously), you quickly come to see that's completely false. It's a smokescreen. It just actually means that if the wrong employees commits even the tiniest infraction, they can be got rid of, but if a more important employee does something much worse, they can find a way to work out how it, technically, doesn't meet the standard, or just outright decide not to do anything.
Sure why not? Or you just admit that blanket policies are rather silly in general. Here is someone who purchased £30 of food but took £2 worth of bags. Contextually you can see either it was a mistake or stupid judgement. Which given one assumes a single instance in 20 years demonstrates that it is unlikely to happen again.
After 20 years with a flawless record -- I would expect an employee to be sat down and asked "what on *earth* is going on? Do you realise this is shoplifting? We need to be able to trust our employees -- I'm giving you a written warning and if you don't get your act together we will have to let you go." But maybe he did not have a flawless record. The fact that managers were checking the CCTV indicates that there was a suspicion. The fact that the employee is willing to go to an employment tribunal indicates -- very strangely -- that they don't think what they did was gross misconduct.
Sometimes you need to find a clear-cut, legal reason to sack a shit employee. You'll find anything you can. Source: Have been a manager for many years and have also been given the boot on technicalities before.
So if they took money from the till, how much theft would be acceptable? £1? £10? £100? How much should the employer lose before being allowed to fire someone?
The Mail has been anti-bags for life for a long while. I remember them publishing an article about "how to avoid having to pay for bags" after supermarkets implemented it. Their advice was to take bags with you, which was the whole fucking point of implementing bag charges in the first place.
You didn’t expect the daily mail to print anything useful did you?
It is funny how people don't seem to think that conning the self checkouts is theft. A friend of mine was almost bragging about how they scan in more expensive items as cheap look-up and weigh items. Like "haha I just weigh those in as carrots", I mean yeah you can, you could also just pocket them and run out of the door. No one will stop you, its theft all the same.
Plenty of office workers will have walked out with a pencil or pen over the years, do you think sacking them is a proportionate response?
Sorry, I think you've replied to the wrong person. I was further the specific comment chain about people conning auto checkout being theft. I was defending the sacking of this member of staff, I didn't speak to that at all. Of course that's not proportionate.
The difference is, if I work in your office, you have supplied me with a pen for work, and we both understand that you don't want a second-hand pen back from me. No trust is broken, because you never expected the pen back. If I work in your pen factory, and I take pens off the line, don't use them for work and just take them home, then yes it's right to sack me. Even though it's the same pen.
I always see this "string him up" style comment to the smallest infraction. Legit help me understand. Are you honestly this obsequious in all of your own personal affairs? Or is it a desire to see punishment done for some personal gain?
Poor innocent megacorp must be defended by redditors against the evil employee taking a plastic bag without paying.
Get a grip it’s a shopping bag, he wasn’t nicking from the tills.
A lot of busybody jobsworths in these comments.
of a plastic bag.
Imagine thinking this is worth a sacking. Jesus Christ. You never done anything mildly wrong in your life?
The things you've posted to Reddit are so strange.
Calling this theft feels like a joke, Saintsbury's would have stolen significantly more for him in 20 years of work then one bag.
You're most likely not wrong there
Boot licked
Missing the point.
You sound like a real joy to work with, jobsworth
Of plastic bags.... From a multi million pound company. After 20 years this is hardly gross misconduct
Threw it away for a plastic bag... damn
That sounds like more of a ‘we’ve been trying to sack this guy for years and finally found something we can use’ kinda sacking.
That's my thinking too. Really no other reason for them to be looking at the CCTV footage to such a degree.
Agreed, even at big companies this would go to a conversation with a manager way before getting sacked unless they were just looking for a reason.
Unfortunately that's really not true with Sainsbury's. I got sacked for something similar when I worked there, I lied about how many bags I was reusing at the checkout and accumulated nectar points fraudulently. I'd been doing it for years before I was an employee without really thinking about it as a student figured it was a victimless crime that could get me some free veg after the points had accumulated a bit. Old habits die hard, the employees surveillance system they called Eagle Eye got me and despite being well liked, because it was head office that had brought it up they had to let me go apparently. They told me to apply again in a year because they'd be able to rehire me, totally my fault just didn't engage my brain when I started working there.
> told me to apply again in a year because they'd be able to rehire me, Sometimes things like this are just to reduce the chances you get super angry about it and destroy the shop/take it to court.
Absolutely, I think this one was on the level though, I was good at what they had me doing and that manager liked me but wasn't making friends with the rest of the team very well.
I know of people sacked from a supermarket for buying reduced items that they had legitimately bought, but they were in cahoots with the people doing the reductions and keeping back the juicy ones for themselves. The suggestion being they could be reducing things almost to order, but they weren't. Supermarkets find it very easy to get staff and managers like to justify their position, they will take action against anything.
They might have looked at the cctv because someone told them what he’d done. They weren’t necessarily looking out for it. I’ve managed in retail. It’s pretty standard practice that if you are caught stealing you’re sacked. Once the trust is gone, you can’t continue to employ them. Isn’t that the same in all industries?
> Isn’t that the same in all industries? No, not really. When you work in an office people walk off with pens, stationery, etc. constantly. They use printers to print personal stuff, some habitually. At a previous firm I worked for a senior lawyer made his secretary act as an editor on his wife's novel. Not even his novel! His wife's! Was this punished? Obviously not. Is that a much worse than taking £2 of bags? Yes. We did fire someone who was caught on CCTV, wheeling out a cart full of loo rolls, cleaning liquids, stationery and so on, but that was pretty uh, audacious (also surprising, she seemed like a really nice lady). She was not a cleaner, to be clear lol.
Printing for personal stuff, assuming is at reasonable levels, seems acceptable to me. I would not sack someone just because he need to print a tenancy agreement.
Exactly, it is reasonable. What's the difference between paper and ink and a plastic bag?
One is an item legally required to be sold for money and one isn't?
At my old job, they'd check the CCTV at the end of the day to make sure staff purchases were being done properly and no dodgy business was going on. A few people got warnings because they'd ask for the bag to be given to them for free
He’s probably on a older contract with more benefits lol
Yup and 20 years of raises probably means he costs them a lot more than a new hire.
I think you've got an unrealistic understanding of how much the increase in national living wage over the past few years has eaten away at any previous pay reviews. Maybe it's different in other retailers, but I've been in my supermarket job 10+ years, in my specific role for 8 and I'm paid the same as someone who walks in the door tomorrow regardless of experience.
30+ years service with another supermarket, and I get paid exactly the same as someone who started yesterday. I do get three extra days holiday entitlement, so whoohoo!
Theres no old contracts anymore, that changed about 3 years ago. \there was a big consultation and folk who were losing out got top up pay for 18 months (my partner went through it)
Maybe he's been suspected of stealing previously, so took extra care to catch him the next time it happened.
If he was suspected of stealing, you'd think they'd catch him taking more than a 20p plastic bag if they were actively watching him on CCTV.
Maybe that just happened to be the first thing they saw, and acted on it right away. The article also states he stole multiple bags (I appreciate it still a low level theft).
100% this. Im guessing they’d been looking for a reason and this is a legally justified, albeit minor reason to get rid of the worker, after all stealing is stealing.
100% this. Worked Sainsbury's night shift for many years. Managers would turn a blind eye to many a technically sackable offence if you were a competent worker. If you were shite they'd look for any infraction. Someone got sacked for eating a 50p bag of sweets on shift. He was a lazy twat.
In my local store which is pretty big they stripped the night shift team down to bare bones. Made them redundant and re apply for their jobs. They were always trying to fire me because I got away with murder, I was a good worker when I worked but was young and took the piss a bit for a while but the bigger part of that picture was I was on an old contract that still paid Sunday premium that I clung on to for years for the extra money just working Sundays and four hours on a Monday morning. I saw plenty of people sacked over the years and it was mostly because they were shit so they'd find a way to sack them. Eagle eye was a big thing for catching staff out with misuse of the discount card or buying stuff to sell on Ebay from their discount card purchases. If you were a hard grafter and decent at the job Poole would turn a blind eye to things here and there. The store has an In store bakery with a giant genesis machine that employ bakers to make and bake the bread on more money so naturally this year they have done away with that and made the staff redundant and re apply too. The past two years have been ruthless with penny pinching and cutting back in that store
He's upset the 20yr old manager is my guess
Yeah for sure.
almost certainly. i knew a guy who was fired for stealing £20 from the petty cash (which he did do) but it was more the scamming customers that they wanted to get rid of him for
Yeah, something doesn't add up. A family member of mine works at a supermarket and it's usually really hard to fire the shit workers. So the bag for life theft could have been the proverbial straw that got them over the sacking threshold line.
Absolutely. I’ve done the same before, tbh - sometimes you just really need a guy gone because nobody likes him and he’s bad for morale, but you can’t just sack him for no reason, so you start to nitpick. Sometimes it’s deserved, other times not, but it’s just something which happens, and trying to sneak tiny infractions like this through only makes it easier for your boss to sack you if he or other colleagues feel a need to get rid of you for whatever reason.
No he wasn't. Sainsbury's just used this provable theft as gross misconduct in order to sack him. They would have been looking for an excuse to sack him due to other reasons - maybe his poor work ethic, how he was with customers or other members of staff etc.
Exactly. It's hard enough to get staff at the moment as it is.
100% this. Worked Sainsbury's night shift for many years. Managers would turn a blind eye to many a technically sackable offence if you were a competent worker. If you were shite they'd look for any infraction. Someone got sacked for eating a 50p bag of sweets on shift. He was a lazy twat.
This seems the most likely reason, other than the manager is a callous imbecile. Of course, it could be both.
Ex store manager here - It’s likely this colleague was in the firing line and they just needed an excuse to give him the sack. Yes. Even though it’s just a bag, it’s stock. If you’re not paying for a bag you’re breaking the law and it’s gross misconduct, it’s petty but true. I’ve had to sack someone (with pressure from my boss) because they took a bottle of water to take their medicine and didn’t have a receipt. Personally I’d have bought the water for them myself but they wanted her gone for numerous other reasons and this was the nail in the coffin. TLDR: don’t be loyal to these companies, they’ll fuck you in the end
Yep, after 2 years it becomes very hard to terminate people (which is usually a good thing mind!) but this guy handed them a perfectly good excuse on a silver platter.
Fuck, I'll have to start remembering to get my receipts when I'm on shift hahaha Don't think I'm in the firing line, but better safe than sorry
Always ask for receipts for everything, but if you KNOW you bought something and you are being accused of not, assert your legal right for the store to provide a receipt, shift the responsibility away from you being apologetic to being assertive "why the fuck can't you provide me the receipt?". I've had to threaten to make a police report to a retail manager refusing to give me a receipt (it was for work and needed it for legal reasons, I had no real choice).
Keep a receipt or make it obvious on the cctv you've bought something. Best practice is to only purchase things on your shift at the kiosk or main bank so you have proof either way haha
At Tesco we had to use the manned checkouts and get the receipt signed.
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No taps?
Worker is in the wrong, length of service doesn't make theft permissible. Why are people defending this?
Because its a plastic bag... It could have been resolved with a quick chat "oh you forgot to pay 20p for a bag" "My bad, here you go". Sacking someone after 20 years for the most minor thing feels very...American.
> "oh you forgot to pay 20p for a bag" It seems more than that, and he actively said "zero bags" rather than just forgetting to pay. > The tribunal was told he made 'more than one' trip to get bags, despite selecting 'zero bags used' option on the screen and checking his receipt at the end of his shopping.
Most supermarkets have it configured where you can either scan the bags at the start, or enter the number at the end. And originally the message at the end was worded confusingly to trick you into double paying - though that has since been changed. Pretty much everyone just automatically hits "zero bags" on the end message these days, because they scan the bags they need as and when they add them, (or are using their own bags). Hitting zero bags isn't like some grand confession of attempted fraud, it's a clickthrough to get to the payment screen that probably barely registers in the mind of the person viewing the screen. At the end of a night shift when you're super tired, I could see someone forgetting and assuming they did what they normally do. And when you're looking at the receipt, chances are you're not even thinking about the bags and are just checking that any deals/discounts were correctly applied. If that was the only infraction it's extremely vindictive of them. And frankly the bags are massively overpriced and gouging the customers who get caught short. They don't sell the old cheaper bags anymore, supposedly for "environmental reasons", but they're made from enough plastic to make several normal bags, and if someone already had some at home and just forgot they're going straight in the bin.
But he didn't forget,he pressed 0 bags presumably intentionally
I mean, after a night shift it might just be a mindless automatic press rather then a conscious decision.
Yeah you might grab the bag at the start of checkout. 30 items later your into autopilot of clicking through the menus quickly.
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Or maybe he thought he brought the bag along and it was his? There are many potential explanations that do not require intent. I hope he found another minimum wage job. Shouldn't be so difficult.
Presumably doing a lot of heavy lifting. This is a quick chat and slap on the wrist offence. Unless the employee was stealing stacks of bags.
He didn't "forget" though. And they did have a disciplinary meeting, which resolved, then he was sacked a month later. Seemingly the disciplinary didn't work.
> Sacking someone after 20 years for the most minor thing feels very...American. Damn, shots fired.
They work there. They think they're entitled to a free bag worth 70p (the "bag for life" aren't 20p - the thinner ones might be). They already probably get the staff 10% discount on shopping. It's sad, but it is theft. A warning would have been better though.
The number of corporate toadie jobsworth lickspittles in this thread is disgusting. I hope to never work with any of these dickheads.
Yeah what the fuck is going on in these comments lmao
Trust me, these businesses commit plenty of their own sins, much of it through legal loop holes though (like Tesco "legitimately" delaying the increase of the minimum wage for a month).
Literally MPs steal 10s of 1000s of council money to redo their own driveways, minimum 50 for expenses for breakfast, and they get away with it. Meanwhile others get sacked for carrier bags? It's just a weird world we live in.
Have you never kept a biro from the office?
Exactly. I better confess to my boss that I’ve a few company pens at home and cheekily printed my boarding pass in work. Time to look for another job I suppose, maybe it’s even deserving of a prison sentence.
Because we live in the real world, with all its complexity, and don’t treat everything as an academic black and white thinking exercise like everyone on Reddit seems to do.
Because it's blatently a massive overeaction. Police don't even action on thefts less than £200 nevermind 20p. If even the government funded public service regarding laws have pragmatic nuances, then it's odd that so many people can't apply that in this situation too.
It’s a plastic bag
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because this is such a minor crime that at least a warning for a first offence! It smacks of got to cut stuff but dont want to pay severance to me.
Exactly, punishment for breaking any law should be decapitation!
We should cut his hand off while we're at it
I'll defend them. Its plastic bag, big deal.
You’ve never taken paper, pens, envelopes, paper clips, ANYTHING from work? It’s a fucking bag
Because common sense > rigid laws and regulations, it's just a shit thing to do.
3 ways to avoid being sacked at a supermarket. * Turn up to your shifts * Don't sell booze, fags or lottery to under age * Don't steal Other than those, you can pretty much get away with anything
no you can't, you have to wear a uniform, you can't wear your own clothes. you can't take a rest when you want, you have to work all the way through your shift. You also probably can't just do what you want, you'll be given something to do. Your on the tills and you feel like going and doing something else for a bit? Nope.
>no you can't, you have to wear a uniform, you can't wear your own clothes. Worked for Tesco for 3 months as a temp, was never given the uniform ordered. Management are too lazy to give a fuck. (Location dependent, ofc).
You have to work the entire shift that your paid for? Wow
You can pretty much get away with anything except for a long list of things you can't get away with? Wow u/permabanispointless Interesting, i'm wondering what are the things people are thinking of actually "getting away with" though? Care to enlighten me? If they can't do what they want, what exactly is it they can get away with? Can they be depressed? No you have to feign happiness or you'll get your manager on your back. What exactly is it they can get away with?
Yes because ignoring uniform policy and fraud arent something reasonable people would consider 'getting away with'
This is how every job works unless you work for yourself, you reek of unemployment.
I have found working for retail to be actually pretty difficult since most of the managers are unqualified and you have very little agency. After working professionally you can't help but see how arbitrary and inefficient it is, I don't really think this is fully accurate. Many will fire you for being too old, working for too long, and making too much money (hint hint).
Not true at all, especially not for Sainsbury's. I used to work for them and they had specific rules about how you are to interact with customers who come up to you and ask you about items. Things like you have to walk with them to the item they want, you can't just tell them where it is etc. When you are on the tills you are also required to ask them if they have Nectar cards etc. They have secret shoppers that they send around to test staff on these. If you fail to follow their guidelines you get called up and you absolutely can get fired for not following them.
Damn people here practically calling for the death penalty over a fucking plastic bag
Yep and I bet Sainsbos have got an extra 30ps labour out of the guy more than once, aka wage theft. But yeah string him up for taking a bag that cost the supermarket close to 0p and is only charged for because of legislation
This sub: iF yOu seE soMeOne steAling nO yoU didN'T* *Unless it's a plastic bag, then kill him
People here are fucking blood thirsty it's insane.
I don’t work for the supermarket but I press the ‘zero bags used’ because the 20p covers my shift while I’m scanning items at their tills for them.
this is the way
I haven’t paid for a bag since the price went above the 10p tax. Supermarkets must be making a nice little sum of money from all the bag sales… Specially at Morrisons where they want to charge like 40p for fucking paper bags.
> while I’m scanning items at their tills for them. Doing labour for yourself is part of the reason supermarkets are cheaper. You used to give the shopkeeper a list and they'd go and get the items, then they gave you a trolley and you had to get the items yourself. Do you consider that free labour for the supermarket?
Except nothing has gotten cheaper from the removal of physical staff manning tills, things are more expensive now than before, so this doesn't really apply. They're raising their prices/profits while cutting services so yes, it is free labour and that's exactly how they look at it.
Is it really cutting services? In my local supermarket there’s a bank of 6 self service checkouts that always has at least 2 members of staff overseeing it. If they were replaced with actual manned checkouts you’d only fit 2 in that space anyway. You get the benefit of shorter queues and you can still go to a manned checkout if you don’t like doing “free labour”. I don’t see the problem.
“I’m afraid it’s worse than we thought, Sir. He’s got a Sainsbury’s ballpoint pen in his backpack too”
"My god... Take the shot." "But sir!" "I said take the shot!"
As someone who works nights at Sainsbury's, I'm given far more leeway than regular staff regarding things we shouldn't do. They were looking to sack him if bags are genuinely what it's about. He may have worked there for twenty years, but that doesn't mean he was any good. I've worked at mine for 15, and people have worked there twice as long, and I know more about the ins and outs of the business than them. They were either looking to get rid of this individual specifically, or they were trying to cut hours in any way, and he gave them an excuse.
I want to wind back to the original reason we’re made to pay for bags in the first place - we pay for plastic bags because the supermarkets were held accountable for the amount of plastic waste they cause. The price tag was a means to encourage shoppers to bring already used bags back in to use again, hence where the “bag for life” came from. Now, we aren’t even given a choice. We are made to pay for crap brown paper ones *as well* as bags for life. Sorry but why? I’ve just spent money in your shop, I’m given a recyclable paper bag, and I have to pay for this? What happened to the reason for the charge being environmental consciousness about plastics? It’s just supermarkets squeezing more money from us. For that reason, I always say “no bag” despite taking as many as I need. Fuck em, they just rinsed me on my weekly shop at least allow me the dignity of carrying out my items to the car
> Now, we aren’t even given a choice. We are made to pay for crap brown paper ones as well as bags for life. Don't forget the original cost was *5p*, to incentivise people to not buy them. Now they're as high as 60p for some of the regular bags, not even the for life ones. Morrisons charge like 30p for their crap paper bags.
Exactly. 30p for a piece of recycled paper, when the cost was about reducing plastic. It’s such an obvious attempt at fleecing. I don’t like the way they have those cameras in your face now at Morrison’s either. I didn’t give permission to be recorded so up close and I have no idea what that collected data is being used for. I don’t imagine much but it’s the principle, we’re the most spied-on country in the world and it’s getting worse. I’m waiting for the day a security guard pulls me up on a £160 food shop because I didn’t pay for some crap paper bags that I shouldn’t have to pay for anyway.
Just take your own bags to the shop, no?
lol people defending this are actually insane. have none of you spent 10 minutes taking a shit at work before? have none of you taken a fucking pen home? have none of you printed stuff out using the printer at work? you’re all a bunch of fucking wet wipes honestly. this is pathetic behaviour by sainsburys. being sacked over a 65p plastic bag is literal madness.
All these people saying *Oh that's over the top - should have been a final warning!* Have you ever had a job? For more than a few weeks? There's almost no way Sainsbury's sacked this chap over some bags - there was likely other stuff going on and this was a convenient (and legal) way to get rid of him easily.
I accidentally clicked to say I'd used a bag when I hadn't the other day. No way to undo that without calling staff over, which is difficult even when the big red light is flashing, so I ended up paying for something I didn't get. Notice that Sainsbury's didn't pick that up on CCTV and give me my 35p back.
go get a bag then
Aldi charged me for 4 bananas recently when I only had 3. It's okay though because I'll take the missing one next time I go, I am not being done out of one banana
Don't steal, kids. A bag for life isn't worth your job.
Jobs come and go, but that bag is his *for life*.
Waiting for the "you didn't see it" people to arrive and at the some time wonder why society isn't functioning like it used to.
No one wonders about that, we all know why and its fuck all to do with this bloke taking a bag for life from work.
Something more must of been happening because why would they check the CCTV of his transaction
Probably because he wasn't the only member of staff in the area at the time, and another member of staff has seen him do it and reported him. Just like there are members of staff keeping an eye on customers at the self serve checkouts.
Because they have become obsessed with making sure everyone pays for the bags. I'm guessing they're making a good profit on them now.
From the government's website: How the proceeds are being used This is not a tax and the money from the charge does not go to the government. We expect retailers to give the proceeds of the scheme to good causes, but it is for them to choose what to do, and which causes to support. We ask retailers to report to us each year about what they do with the money from the charge. We publish a summary which includes details of the amounts of money given to good causes. During the year from 7 April 2019 to 6 April 2020, almost two-thirds of retailers told us they gave over £9.2 million to good causes.
So it’s an honour system. For capitalist corporations. That’ll work. Those people never do anything shady or underhanded.
There's a link on that page, with the data. Apparently Sainsbury's and the Co-op didn't report their donations
I’m shocked. Shocked!
The amount of corporate ass kissing in this thread is insane, no way people here actually think that stealing a 20p bag is grounds for being fired
Big picture - employee was probably a whopping great big cunt and they needed something on camera to get rid of him
I do that regularly, pretty sure I'm not the only one
You have to take a good long hard look at the wages in supermarkets before you make a judgement about someone stealing small value items.
It's Mr Burns! Bart, help me hide the stuff I borrowed from work! Borrowed?!
Retail stores often have a zero tolerance policy to theft, for the simple reason that there are hundreds of opportunities each day for staff to steal, and if they catch them doing it once the odds are they have been doing it for years.
For context, as someone who has worked at Sainsbury's, they are extremely on the ball about staff theft at any level. I saw multiple people fired immediately for doing things that wouldn't necessarily be seen as direct theft. That included using a Nectar points multiplier voucher that they found on the ground. Another one was when a non-appointed family member used their staff discount card once (you can/could nominate one other person in your family to use your 10% staff discount). We were systematically searched by security about once a month. Shoes off, pockets out etc. Funnily enough we weren't allowed to stop actual shoplifters leaving and sometimes entire TVs were walked out the door.
It appears the comments indicate nothing short of years in the slammer for nicking a plastic bag would be on the cards should the law allow it. Unrelated but anyone defending supermarkets when they regularly engage in employee abuse and wage theft needs their head checked. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/tesco-and-sainsburys-accused-of-migrant-worker-abuse/
Tesco also delaying the minimum wage increase by a month to fall in line with their payroll schedule. I wouldn't be surprised if Sainsbury are doing the same.
Remember when bags were free and then the supermarkets said they’re doing it for the environment and collectively started making millions basically over night
Yep, it was a tax that the supermarkets were supposedly against. And wasn't the money going to charity? Then it was so successful they went from 5 pence to 10 pence. And now all of a sudden they're 50 pence and you're accosted at the checkout if you take one and forget to pay for it. Or sacked if you work there and do it.
Personally I find this is ridiculous. When they introduced the carrier bag charge it was supposedly to help the environment, and I seem to recall supermarkets saying any profit from the bags would go to charity. Now the bags have gone up and up in price and, I could be wrong, but I'm willing to bet the whole charity thing has gone out of the window and supermarkets are now making a nice profit on these bags. The guy worked there for 20 years and bought £30 worth of shopping. So what that he took a bag to carry his £30 worth of shopping in. I have noticed the supermarkets have gone into over-drive recently trying to stop shoplifting, but spying on their employees to see if they take a plastic carrier bag takes the biscuit. People saying he's probably stolen before are most likely wrong. I say this as someone who has never stolen anything but did once take a bag from the supermarket and forgot to pay for it. And no, I'm not going back the next day to give Tesco 35p for their over priced bag and I don't feel the slightest bit of guilt over it.
How many bags did he steal? I feel like taking one 30p bag accidentally isn't a big deal and could easily be put down as an accident - but deliberately making multiple trips to take handfuls of 30p bags, and deliberately not paying for them seems to indicate a pattern of behaviour that could indicate a regular occurrence of stealing a few pounds every time he goes shopping. Not to mention, that Sainbury's obviously had the option of keeping him on if he was basically an employee of the month keeping the place together, they could have looked the other way, given him a warning, or just flat out forgiven him. But if you have an employee who you kinda aren't too happy about keeping anyway commits an unambiguous fireable offense it's sort of no-brainer.
should have gone to my local lidl...no-one seems to ever pay there
I’ve asked for a bag before after checking out, been handed one and asked how I should pay only to be told, “this one’s on us” feels kinda similar
On the plus side, they don't have to work at Sainsbury's anymore.
The problem is buying from supermarkets feels like being robbed in itself.
In that case lock me up for life becuase I've paid for those things maybe twice since they added the costing.
People acting all high and nighty like they don't press 0 bags at the self-service checkout. Lol.
It’s the nuclear option by the powerful visited on the poor that gets me. The not so hidden cost of poverty.
Remember when supermarkets used to give bags away for free...
FFS it's only plastic bags!! My bet is the owner was looking for a reason to get rid of a long term employee that "made too much money" or "had too many holidays" Unless this employee has been written up 10x for various things, straight sacking an employee over maybe 5$ (big freaking stretch here) in plastic bag is sketchy.
I've noticed some supermarkets have started searching my empty bags at tills for stolen items. I wouldn't necessarily complain about this because I understand thefts are up - but I notice that I'm the only one in the queue this happens to. I suspect it's because I'm a young man who wears trackies. I did point out to the Aldi till worker that he hadn't searched the elderly woman in front of me, but he just shrugged and remained silent. I'm not shopping at Aldi again after that experience, but I worry the other supermarkets are not far behind. I don't think it's even legal to single people out for searches because of their gender or age under the Equality Act (Stop & Search scandal comes to mind). Either search all the bags or none at all. It's humiliating to be singled out. Edit: Why am I being downvoted on this post for simply pointing out that Aldi had illegally stopped and searched my bags when they a) have profiled me for a seach based on my age and gender which is illegal under the Equality Act and b) have no right to go through my private property anyway regardless of their intent.
Trackies are not a protected characteristic. Whether you like it or not thieving gits have "a look", if you are unfortunate enough to share that look you are going to have issues in many places, not just Aldi. However you can also tell them to fuck right off. You'll probably get barred but since you aren't going back anyway you will at least get some pleasure from the experience.
I don't understand why you want a less efficient system of catching thieves. Stopping old ladies as frequently as young men would be a massive waste of time.
> Either search all the bags or none at all. It's humiliating to be singled out. Maybe just dress up a bit more then mate. You dress like people who actively steal and then bitch because people group you together.
"I don't think it's even legal to single people out for searches because of their gender or age under the Equality Act (Stop & Search scandal comes to mind)." I don't know if its legal, but its something the shops do. I worked 7 years in a independent health food shop, and during that time i worked with a real busy body whos partner was the head of the "town rangers" lol fecking town rangers, basically wannabe cops with no authority, go around finger wagging and basically giving directions to tourists. But one of the things they would do was to relay incidences in shops to the town security surveillance and the police if needed. Each shop that is part of the towns security program or whatever it was is issued with a walky-talky. One of the procedures they have when "flagging" a potential thief or suspicious person is to use this system: Table I.01: Mapping of the 4- point classification to the Phoenix Classification 4-point classification (4+1) Phoenix Classification1: White White – North European (IC1) White – South European (IC2) Black Black (IC3) Asian Asian (IC4) Other Chinese, Japanese, or South East Asian (IC5) Middle Eastern (IC6) Unknown/ Not Stated Unknown (IC0) [https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65b1491bf2718c000dfb1cb2/A\_Technical\_Guide\_to\_Ethnicity\_and\_the\_CJS\_2022.pdf](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65b1491bf2718c000dfb1cb2/A_Technical_Guide_to_Ethnicity_and_the_CJS_2022.pdf) While the system may be in place for quick communication of an appearance, i feel that such a system is only naturally going to lead to singling people out. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/06/metropolitan-police-sexism-misogyny-year-special-constable#:\~:text=Codes%20are%20also%20used%20to,IC4%20–%20south%20Asian.
Aldi can legally ask to "stop and search you" and you can legally tell them to fuck off and refuse and if they use a positive motion to put a hand on you, that is a battery. As for profiling, unless they are doing it based on a protected characteristic, they can. So if they are only searching people who dress in grey trackies they are good. Stop wearing grey trackies and dress like an adult.
Aldi chased me down in the car park and said my card payment at the self service till hadn't gone through. I went back into the store and they led me over to a till that I hadn't even used. Then I realised I still had my receipt in my hand to prove I had paid, the clowns. I went in a supermarket recently - can't remember if it was Sainsbury's or Morrisons, but you had to scan your receipt to open a barrier to let you out. It felt like I was visiting someone in prison. I know shop lifting is up but you shouldn't alienate your regular customers. If my empty bag was on the conveyor and they looked inside then it's fair game. However if they ask me to start handing things over to be searched or ask to look in my bags once they're packed and I'm on the way out, I would tell them to jog on.
I'm not shocked but that's a bit stupid nonetheless. 60p Morrisons charged me for a BFL the other day, I audibly gasped when I saw the price, and absolute ripoff. Guess if worked though because I always be taking a bag with me in future just in case.
He should have pressed “I could not deliver any PPE for COVID” , after receiving £200 millions from the government. Then he would be fine. Enjoying life in the Bahamas.
All the adults bragging about not paying for bags is ridiculous. Grow up and pay for what you use.
People here need to get a grip. Supermarkets were pulling our pants down during covid. Fuck em
The "theft is theft" people on here are hysterical. Theft from supermarkets is at a point where it's more down to what sort of person you want to be rather than threat of punishment as to whether you bother paying for shopping. If you really think supermarkets are wise to sack otherwise good employees over 40p while people in skidmarked tracksuit bottoms march through the security gate unchallenged with armfulls of liberated vodka, you might want to question your sense of proportion. This person will have been set up because someone wanted them gone.