I was fired from a £13 an hour cleaning job after 'stealing' a sandwich… it's inhumane – the sarnie would have been thrown in the bin
A SINGLE mother has blasted her ex-boss after she was fired from her cleaning job for taking a leftover tuna sandwich.
Gabriela RodriguezThe 39-year-old woman, who claims her treatment has left her depressed, said the sandwiches were left out for other staff in the building after the meetings ended.
3
3
3
She had just one tuna and cucumber sarnie before she started cleaning, and put it in the fridge before the end of her shift.
Gabriela believed she had been unfairly dismissed by her employers at Total Clean and said 'five trays' of food were left in the kitchen of law firm Devonshires' London office.
The sun exclusively revealed that the contractor Total Clean dismissed Ecuador-born Gabriela on the grounds that she had “taken client property… without consent or reasonable excuse.”
Devonshires said it had not asked for Gabriela to be made redundant and that they would be happy to have her back in the cleaning business.
Gabriela has since said that the way she was treated when eating a sandwich, which she is determined would have ended up in the bin, was “unfair and inhumane”.
She said MailOnline: “I put it in the refrigerator for after my shift, because the sandwiches were left in the kitchen for other staff when the meetings on the ground floor were finished, and I understood that I had the right to eat it if someone who worked in the building.
“There must have been about five containers of leftover food, including chips and sandwiches, and I only took one small one with tuna and cucumber in it.”
I spent the rest of the day in a state of complete shock. I felt so angry and insulted
Gabriela Rodriguez
A week passed before anyone said anything to Gabriela about the sandwich.
Back at the Devonshires office, she was taken aside at the end of her shift by the Total Clean manager and the company's Human Resources manager.
She added: “They told me it was because I had taken a sandwich without permission and I couldn't believe it.
“I went back home and spent the rest of the day in a state of complete shock. I felt so upset and insulted.”
Her colleagues have since demonstrated outside the plant London Solicitors' headquarters in the Devonshires – where top lawyers earn £1.68 million a year.
Elia Petros, from the UVW union which helped her unfair dismissal claim, said: “Cleaning ladies are routinely dismissed on trivial and, we argue, discriminatory grounds such as this.”
UNFAIR DISMISSAL
Total Clean insisted it had complied with labor laws.
A spokesperson for Devonshires told The Sun: “Devonshires has not made any formal complaint against Gabriela or requested any action be taken against her.
'Total Clean conducted their own investigation and the decision to dismiss Gabriela was made without any input or influence from Devonshires.
“This is a private matter between Total Clean and Gabriela.
“But we have made it clear to Total Clean that we would not object, as we never have, to Gabriela joining us if Total Clean changes its position.”