Cleaner sacked for eating £1.50 sandwich at law firm slams 'inhuman' treatment
A cleaner who was sacked for eating a £1.50 leftover sandwich has spoken out about the “inhuman treatment”.
Single mum Gabriela Rodriguez was sacked by her contractor Total Clean after she helped herself to a £1.50 Tesco sandwich left on a discarded platter. She had been at City law firm Devonshires at the time and said she feels “denigrated” by her “unfair and inhuman” treatment.
Gabriela added she had been left in tears and depressed at the decision to oust her, and the way it was done. The 39-year-old Ecuadorian moved to the UK a decade ago with her ten-year-old daughter. She said: “I’m still so angry about the way I’ve been treated. I’ve been accused of theft when all I did was eat a small sandwich that was probably going to end up in the bin.
"I put it in the fridge to have after my shift ended because the sandwiches were left in the kitchen for other staff when ground-floor meetings finished and I understood I had the right to eat it as someone who worked in the building. There must have been around five trays with left-over food including crisps and sandwiches and I only took one small one with tuna and cucumber inside.
"It would have been around 2.30pm so lunch-time was virtually over and almost certainly the sandwich I ate and most of the others on the trays would have ended up being thrown away. The way they got rid of me was horrible."
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She added: "A week went by without anyone saying anything and then about 15 minutes before the end of my shift when I was at the Devonshires building a Total Clean manager and the company’s Human Resources manager came in and told me I was being suspended without pay and and had to hand in my pass and leave immediately.
Gabriela's colleagues protested after her treatment (United voices of the world)"They told me it was because I had taken a sandwich without permission and I couldn’t believe it. I went back home and I spent the rest of the day in a state of total shock. I felt so upset and offended. There were a lot of tears and days when I had no appetite. That and the worry of not knowing how I’d cope financially because I’m a single mum bringing up a young daughter on just the one salary."
Gabriela is claiming unfair dismissal against the cleaning firm which employed her with the help of the grassroots UVW Union for migrant workers which she is a member of. Total Clean boss Graham Petersen confirmed her sacking in writing following her appeal to keep her job and a November 23 2023 disciplinary hearing held over Zoom after the sandwich incident nine days earlier.
His letter stated: "At the hearing your explanation was that you found a sandwich in the kitchen near the end of your shift and took it without a second thought. You stated that previously the client had left food in the kitchen and offered it out, so you thought it was fine. I considered your explanation to be unsatisfactory because you confirmed that no one had offered you the food in the kitchen but decided to take it anyway.
Gabriela is now claiming for unfair dismissal against Total Clean (United voices of the world)"I have decided that your conduct has resulted in a fundamental breach of your contractual terms which irrevocably destroys the trust and confidence necessary to continue the employment relationship."
Gabriela’s colleagues demonstrated outside the central London business, where a top lawyer earns over £1.5million a year. They held cans of tuna and banners saying: “Sacked for a sandwich?’ and “We are not the dirt, we clean.” A UVW Union spokesman insisted yesterday: "Gabriela understood she was also allowed to eat this food. It is so incredibly far beyond the realms of reasonableness and comprehension to dismiss an employee for eating a leftover tuna and cucumber sandwich.
"We now understand that the privilege of eating leftover sandwiches perhaps does not extend to the outsourced migrant workforce in the building."
Gabriela said: "No-one else was in the kitchen at the time and no-one said anything to me so I’m still not sure if I’ve been filmed on CCTV. Although Devonshires are now saying they didn’t complain and are happy to have me back on their premises, the Total Clean manager who came to the building just before my shift ended and told me to hand in my pass said it was because the building manager from the law firm had complained and accused me of stealing a sandwich.
"It was mortifying for me to be accused of theft. I consider my treatment was unfair and denigrating. I’m a very conscientious person who’s always tried to do their job to the highest standards possible and I’d never had any previous complaints from anyone I’d worked with."
Gabriela spends the majority of her pay cheque on rent and then uses the rest to provide for her daughter. She’s thankfully landed on her feet in a new job and said she wouldn’t go back to Total Clean even if they did admit they were wrong.
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A spokesman for Devonshires said yesterday: "Devonshires did not make a formal complaint against Gabriela and expressly told Total Clean not to take any against her. Total Clean carried out their own investigation and the decision to dismiss Gabriela was taken without any input or influence from Devonshires whatsoever.
"This is a private matter between Total Clean and Gabriela but we have made clear to Total Clean that we would not object, as we never have done, to Gabriela attending and working on our premises if Total Clean changes its position."
Total Clean has insisted it complied with employment law.
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