A Tesco warehouse worker has won more than £800 at an employment tribunal for wrongful dismissal and pay deductions by the supermarket.
The worker, I. Birins, started working at Tesco in June 2017 as a forklift driver and picker.
He worked at the Tesco distribution centre in Daventry, and earned £10.30 an hour from April 2019, plus an extra 25 percent on weekends.
From 2011 until 2018 there was no dispute between him and Tesco, though he had a back problem from 2014 to 2016.
His work did not suffer as a result, Tesco said.
But in 2018 Tesco said Birin's performance "began to drop", a tribunal in Birmingham said earlier this month.
The supermarket monitors its employees at the warehouse by giving them an electronic device.
This tells them what jobs they have to do, and how quickly they have to do it.
If a worker is at above 92 percent productivity they are classed as 'exceeding' expectations.
If they are at 92 percent they are ''achieving consistently'. For productivity of 85 to 91.99 percent, the workers have 'more to do'.
The performance measures take into account weights of items, where they are located and the amount of time needed to go to the toilet.
A series of written warnings followed, and the tribunal agreed with Tesco that "he was experienced but was simply too slow in completing tasks within the allocated timescale".
The tribunal heard Birins had underperformed and could not properly explain why.
At one point he asked Tesco for retraining and lighter work, due to a back issue.
Tesco said Birins was trained in two skills already, they did not have a business need for him to be retrained and he was not available for retraining as he worked weekends, when this would happen.
Birins was finally dismissed by Tesco after being given 20 months to improve to its standards.
He appealed the decision, but Tesco stood firm and Birins went to an employment tribunal on July 2020.
Birins told the tribunal "he was provided with heavy work and he was set up to fail and not trained". He said he felt pushed away from the company.
He took Tesco to the tribunal for unfair dismissal, outstanding holiday pay, wrongful dismissal and unlawful deductions from his wages.
The tribunal ruled that his claims for wrongful dismissal and unlawful deductions were valid, but dismissed the others.
Tesco conceded the wrongful dismissal claim and that it did owe Birins some cash.
The tribunal said: "The respondent [Tesco] has rightly conceded that it failed to pay the claimant notice pay and holiday pay."
The tribunal said Tesco should pay Birins £619.95 for unpaid bonuses and pay.
The supermarket has also been told to pay Birins for two shifts he worked in 2020, totalling £212.46.
Tesco would not comment.
