A woman is suing her former workplace, a law firm, after she says she was fired for eating a leftover sandwich she found in the office.
Gabriela Rodriguez worked as a cleaner for London-based Devonshires Solicitors for two years, before being sacked by the private contractor she worked for, Total Clean, for eating a tuna sandwich worth around $1.90 which someone had left during a meeting.
According to the legal affairs website RollOnFriday, the sandwich was purchased at popular British grocer, Tesco, and had to be thrown away before Rodriguez ate the leftovers. She was fired for “theft” for taking client property “without authority or reasonable excuse.”
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Lawyers for the Devonshires denied that anyone at the company had filed a formal complaint against Rodriguez. But it is not clear, therefore, how Total Clean became aware of the sandwich.
“Devonshires did not make a formal complaint against Gabriela or ask for any action to be taken against her. Total Clean carried out its own investigation and the decision to dismiss Gabriela was made without any input or influence from Devonshires,” a representative from the company told the outlet. “This is a private matter between Total Clean and Gabriela, but we have made it clear to Total Clean that we will not, as we never have, object to Gabriela’s presence and work on our premises if Total Clean changes its position.”
Upon news of Rodriguez’s firing, dozens of members of the United Voices of the World Union rallied and showed their support by standing outside the Devonshire offices with cans of tuna, packaged sandwiches, balloons and letters all addressed to Rodriguez.
“Cleaners are regularly fired for trivial and, in our opinion, discriminatory reasons like this every day across the country. Many describe feeling treated ‘like the dirt they clean’ and Gabriela is one of them. We will raise our voices and we will unite to fight any employer, even large and powerful firms like Devonshires Solicitors,” said UVW general secretary Petros Elia The Guardian. “Just because we clean up their dirt, doesn’t mean they can treat us like trash.”
Rodriguez is a mother of two and originally from Ecuador.
According to the UVW Instagram page, the organization “left the sandwiches at reception and requested a meeting with management, which was agreed between the CEO and a partner of the company”, although Devonshires did not confirm publicly if or when the meeting would take place. .
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Total Clean was served with charges of “unfair dismissal” and “direct racial discrimination”, while Devonshires solicitors were hit with charges of “direct and/or indirect racial discrimination”.
Total Clean did not immediately respond That of the entrepreneur request for comment.