Tribunal awards damages to dismissed hotel gardener

A hotel operator has been ordered to pay a former employee Lm4,000 in damages after an Industrial Tribunal ruled that his job had been terminated unfairly.

Tribunal chairman Franco Masini ordered Qawra Palace Hotel pay Gaetano Tanti, a gardener, Lm1,000 upfront and the rest in monthly instalments of Lm500.

Mr Tanti had initiated the proceedings before the tribunal claiming he had been the victim of an unfair dismissal. He explained that on September 7, 2006, he received a phone call from the hotel's general manager telling him that his employment had been terminated forthwith. This was because he had failed to obey an order he felt did not make sense.

Then, on October 17 he received a letter of termination of employment stating that his employment was terminated because the post of gardener had been abolished.

After evaluating the timeline of the way things had happened, the tribunal ruled this was definitely not a matter of redundancy, as the employer had claimed.

Lawyers José Herrera and Deborah Delceppo represented Mr Tanti.

Lawyer Anglu Farrugia represented the hotel.