By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Industrial Tribunal’s vice-president has warned employers to ensure staff terminations are done “by the book” in awarding a fast-food group’s ex-supply chain manager $47,000 for unfair dismissal.

However, Rionda Godet, in a September 7, 2023, verdict also rejected the ‘wrongful dismissal’ claim by Larry Bowe, the former warehouse and distribution chief for Aetos Holdings, the Wendy’s, Marco’s Pizza and Popeye’s Chicken franchisee, amid evidence that showed he conducted bitcoin and crypto currency trading using company time and property.

She also refused Mr Bowe’s efforts to obtain compensatory damage, finding his bonus was discretionary “on a balance of probabilities” rather than mandatory as he had alleged, basing this claim on correspondence from Aetos Holding’s human resources chief that she testified was incorrect.

Ms Godet, though, ruled that the ex-supply chain head was unfairly dismissed because Aetos Holdings “breached its own policies and procedures” by failing to provide him with details on the “final breach” that justified his termination. This sparked her warning to all Bahamian employers that, in dismissing workers, they must follow the law and their own documented disciplinary procedures “so as to avoid error”.

Detailing the background to the dispute, which came to a head when COVID-19 was at its peak, the Industrial Tribunal’s vice-president wrote: “From the evidence, it would appear that the applicant and the respondent’s principal both enjoyed a cordial working relationship but, during the time of the pandemic, the relationship became challenged.

“This the applicant [Mr Bowe] attributes to operational issues arising by reason of his reduced days, staff shortedness and inevitable market forces, while the respondent [Aetos Holdings] attributes the same t the applicant’s failing performance, negligence of his duties and distraction from his duties by other interests.”

The instant dismissal, the Industrial Tribunal’s ruling found, stemmed “from a series of reprimands (including a final written warning) that were all presented to Mr Bowe on June 2, 2020. A June 23, 2020, e-mail informed him that his profit sharing bonus was suspended and then, six days later, he was called into a meeting with Terry Tsavoussis, Aetos Holdings’ executive vice-president, and given a termination letter.

This identified the cause of his dismissal as an “accumulation of breaches” that violated the company’s policies and employee handbook. The first breach, which was said to have taken place in the year between March 2019 and Mach 2020, involved “an excessive amount of Popeye’s chicken”, worth $39,000, that was acquired and frozen over the course of several months.

Aetos Holdings argued this amounted to “negligence”, as Mr Bowe was responsible for avoiding such situations by ensuring all inventory was kept at the correct levels. However, the former supply chain manager, while agreeing that he was presented with the violation on June 2, 2020, refused to sign it.

He did likewise with the second breach, dated May 2020 but also presented to him on that same day, alleging that he neglected a key e-mail for 11 days and, as a result, an audit of Popeye’s by Restaurants Brands International (RBI), the franchisor, was delayed.

Chris Tsavoussis, Aetos Holdings’ president, argued during the trial that this threatened potentially serious consequences for the business. “Part of the delay, when these folks come down, potentially jeopardising our facility and potentially creating a situation where we could be forced to shut down, which would not only affect the Popeye’s brand but would spread into the other brands [and] could dramatically affect our entire business,” he blasted.

The final written warning, involved 30 cheese cases, worth $2,900, that had to be disposed of after they were delivered to Marco’s PIzza’s Freeport operations because they had gone past the expiry date. This was cited as creating a risk of “food borne illness”, with the incident said to have occurred between March and May 2020. Mr Bowe again did not sign this.

However, he denied seeing the final warning, alleging that the Blake Road warehouse storage maintenance room was “in complete disarray and filthy”, on June 29, 2020 - the date of termination. Mr Bowe, though, did recall receiving a June 25, 2020, e-mail from Chris Tsavoussis in response to his earlier message that “I am not in charge of inventory; I am only in charge of the supply chain”.

Chris Tsavoussis said Mr Bowe’s position “defies basic reason... because it is not possible to manage supply chain without managing inventory”. He argued that this had never been the position, and added that Mr Bowe was being paid almost $95,000 in salary and bonuses annually to perform the two functions, calling on him to “stop this nonsense” and halt assertions he had no responsibility for the warning letter issues.

The former supply chain manager, though, asserted that he also never saw the official warning/suspension or dismissal notice said to have been presented to him on June 29, 2020, as part of the disciplinary process. Mr Bowe added that the only document he received was his June 29, 2020, termination letter.

However, Wellington Bastian, Aetos Holdings’ IT supervisor, said an examination of the computer and laptop assigned to Mr Bowe after the latter’s dismissal revealed he had accessed crypto currency trading websites between June 12, 2020, and June 29, 2020, while on company time and contrary to its policies.

Ms Godet, during the trial, asked Mr Bowe if he had been working for any other entity, or conducting any non-work activity, during his time with Aetos Holdings which the former supply chain manager denied. Chris Tsavoussis, in his evidence, said he became involved in the matter “when a lot of the ‘shenanigans’ going on” at Aetos Holdings’ Blake Road warehouse came to his attention.

Alleging that “the decline in Mr Bowe’s work ethic and commitment to the business was becoming more and more evident”, the Aetos Holdings principal confirmed the profit sharing suspension and sent his brother, Terry, and Shantell Lockhart, head of human resources, to find out what was happening.

“There were rumours that Mr Bowe had himself a nice side business dealing in gold trading and crypto currency trading, and I had heard that he used his good offices to solicit his subordinates in investing in these platforms,” Chris Tsavoussis alleged. However, Mr Bowe denied this to his brother, Terry, and also refuted that he was selling brooms and mops on the side.

Asked why there was a three-month delay between the Popeye’s chicken incident and the issuance of the warning letter, Chris Tsavoussis replied: “We were in the midst of the COVID pandemic, which had just taken seat globally, and... as the president and chief executive, trying to manage and keep 1,200 employees gainfully employed in the midst of your store hours being cut, weekends being shut and knowing we were not going to furlough anyone, which we did not during the entire COVID period, would explain why we may have been a month or two behind issuing a few warning letters.”

Ms Godet, in rejecting Mr Bowe’s wrongful dismissal claim, found that the misuse of Aetos Holdings’ computer system and time for crypto trading “most certainly represents conduct which an employer may consider ‘repugnant’ to its interests” and therefore justify termination - albeit this was discovered after he had already been fired.

However, in upholding the unfair dismissal claim, she noted that Mr Bowe was never challenged on his allegation that Chris Tsavoussis “was seeking to oust him, just as he had other employees before”. And Ms Godet said she found it “incredible” that COVID was used as the reason why a breach allegedly dating back to 2019 was no dealt with sooner.

Finding that the final violation, following the three previous warnings, was never presented to Mr Bowe to justify his dismissal, she concluded that based on the fact this all occurred in less than a month “it seems evident that the respondent was on a determined course to remove the applicant from employment”.

“Under these sorts of exacerbated circumstances, every detail must be ‘by the book’ and tightly expressed so as to avoid error,” Ms Godet warned. She calculated Mr Bowe’s compensation based on three weeks for each of the 10 and three-quarter years he was with Aetos Holdings, coming up with $47,000.