Fire Fighter Sacked

[Gumbo]

Posted this under general seen it should be under chit chat, please remove the one under general

A fireman has been sacked in Grampian for being obese, now the union is balloting all members for strike action.

I think the question here is, as Taxpayers do we have the right to expect people whom our lives may depend on to be physicaly up to the job ???? The same could be said for Police Officers etc, the Fire Board have said they have offered every possible help to the person involved to lose weight, but he has refused should he be sacked or not ??

 

[GeorgeB]

Gumbo,

Without going into the rights & wrongs of this individuals case, an employer is within his legal rights to dismiss an individual if they are no longer physically capable of carrying out the job that they were employed to do.

That said, any reasonable employer would only dismiss as a last resort, after protracted consultation with the employee, if the condition was treatable and the employee wilfully refused that treatment, or if the condition was permanent and there was no other suitable employment within the organisation.

Personally I would have thought that they could, would & should have encoraged the employee to attend any of the propriety weight loss clubs/clinics even if it meant paying for that attendance & in the meantime whilst this was going on suspend him/her from "active" duty untill such times as they could pass the required fitness test.

But to go back to your original question, yes I do think as taxpayers we have the right to expect front line members of the emergency services to be physically capable of doing the job!

Its elementary contract law, if you employ anyone to carry out a task, its an implied term of the contract that they are capable of doing that task, and yes capability, does include "are they physically able to complete the task"

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Perhaps Grampian have been told their employees aren't diverse enough, could they be all white or all male? Maybe the government agencies are putting pressure on them so they have the need to get rid of some to create vacancies for a Diversity Recruitment Drive ;O)

 

[weejock]

LB I presume from your comments that you have not visited the nether regions of the country.

If we were to try and meet those type of quotas up here Grampian would probally only be allowed 10 firemen.