A woman in southern China, identified as Wang, was fired for leaving work “earlier” than she should have on 6 different days in a month.
According to New Express, she took the Guangzhou-based company she worked for to a local court earlier this year that recently ruled that her employer had wrongfully dismissed her and must pay her compensation, as reported by Sinar Harian.
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She left work a minute early
Wang shared that she had been working at the company for 3 years, during which she maintained a good performance record.
She later decided to take action by filing a complaint with the local labour authorities about the unfair dismissal and went ahead and sued the company.
During the hearing, the court found that her employer failed to issue any warnings about her alleged misconduct.
Towards the end of last year, an Human Resources (HR) manager contacted Wang and told her that office surveillance showed she had left her desk one minute early in 6 days within one month.
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Court says there wasn’t enough proof to fire her
The court decided that even if Wang left 1 minute early, it shouldn’t be considered “leaving early” in a serious sense.
They also pointed out that the company never warned her or even tried to talk to her about it before firing her.
In the end, the court said the dismissal didn’t have any solid reason behind it and that there wasn’t enough proof to justify firing her, so it was considered unlawful.
A lawyer named Liu Biyun from Guangdong Laixin Law Firm also said that sacking someone over something this minor was way too extreme.
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Wang ended up winning the lawsuit for wrongful dismissal, and the company was ordered to pay her compensation for letting her go without a valid reason.
Also read: Company Slammed For Allegedly Firing Staff Who’re Stressed Out at Work, Management Responds
