A complaint is made against an IT employee from his team for harassment. The IT employee does not recognise this, but is given an official warning by the employer and ordered to participate in a training course on 'discrimination, harassment and a safe working environment'. He calls in sick. As the IT worker continues to refuse to participate in the training, immediate dismissal follows. How does the court rule?
Instant dismissal
A summary dismissal is only valid if there is an urgent reason for it. When assessing the urgent reason, the court must consider all the circumstances of the case, in context and relation. If an employee persistently refuses to comply with reasonable orders and commands from the employer, this may constitute an urgent reason for summary dismissal.
Employer's position
The employer based the dismissal on the fact that the IT worker had repeatedly refused to attend training on 'discrimination, harassment and a safe working environment'. The employer argued that, in view of its obligation to create a safe working environment, it should expect its employees to participate in such training. The IT worker gave no good reason for his refusal. The company doctor considered the IT worker fully fit for work after more than six months, so there were no medical obstacles to participating in the training, according to the employer.
Is mandatory training a reasonable instruction?
The core issue in this case is whether mandatory training on 'discrimination, harassment and a safe working environment' qualifies as reasonable instruction in the circumstances.
In doing so, the court stated that there was an industrial dispute between the parties. The conflict is essentially about the fact that the IT employee disagrees with the complaint lodged against him and the obligation imposed on him as a result thereof to undergo the aforementioned training. The IT worker absolutely does not recognise himself in the complaint, does not feel heard and it is therefore unpalatable for him to have to undergo such training. He has also pointed this out (unsuccessfully) to the employer on several occasions. All this resulted in the IT worker's failure. The company doctor wrote in several written feedbacks to the parties that there was a disrupted working relationship. Furthermore, the company doctor repeatedly gave the advice to engage in talks under the supervision of a mediator. According to the company doctor, the IT employee's fitness for work cannot be restored until the labour dispute between the parties has been resolved. There is thus a situation of situational disability.
The employer insists that the IT worker must attend the training. This while the industrial dispute was caused by this very fact. Persisting with this demand therefore does not contribute to resolving the conflict. On the contrary, it only worsened relations between the parties. The court is of the opinion that, in view of the clear, concrete and consistent advice of the company doctor, it would have been up to the employer to first solve the labour conflict and not leave it at 'just' one mediation session, instead of continuing to push the training. The fact that the company doctor wrote down at some point that there was no (longer any) question of occupational disability does not alter this. After all, that same advice also stated that there was (still) a labour conflict, and that a further prognosis could only be made after the conflict had been resolved. The absence of impediments to entering into talks with the employer does not mean that the IT employee could also be required to follow the training (which, nota bene, was at the root of the conflict). Nor did the employer at any point ask the company doctor whether the IT worker could be considered capable of doing so. The employer's argument that this is a general 'Global Workplace Harassment Training', mandatory for all employees, and that the obligation to attend is therefore reasonable, also does not hold water. Indeed, it is evident from the documents that the training was tailor-made for the IT worker and imposed on him in response to the complaint.
Judge's ruling
In view of the prior history between the parties, the court finds that there was no reasonable instruction or order by the employer. Therefore, the IT worker's refusal to attend the training imposed does not meet the high bar of urgent cause for summary dismissal in the circumstances. The summary dismissal was wrongly granted.
Consequence
Meanwhile, the IT worker had resigned to his dismissal. The proceedings remained solely about the compensation to be awarded. The court awarded the 61-year-old IT worker fair compensation of €250,000, in addition to the transitional compensation.
Note: When the complaint was investigated, the employee himself apparently had no opportunity to put forward his side of the story. Even afterwards, the employer was hardly open to his rebuttal. If so, immediate dismissal for refusing training on behaviour the employee does not recognise is far too big a step.
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