Livingston FC ordered to pay ex-chef £8000

Jul 23 2009 by Marjorie Kerr, West Lothian Courier

THE head chef at crisis-hit Livingston Football Club who quit because his wages were paid late or not at all, has been awarded almost £8000 compensation by an employment tribunal.

Andrew Park (32), said he was the only person who spoke English – everyone else spoke Italian after the company was acquired by its current Italian owners in June last year.

This meant he was unable to understand the substance of the conversations, instructions were given to him in Italian, and he was presented with menus in Italian with no indication of what the menus meant in English.

Mr Park said this caused difficulties for him as head chef who was responsible for providing meals for 60 to 100 a day, many of them for footballers who had to follow special diets.

He said in the first couple of days he got help in translating the menus but was then left to his own devices.

He added he very much enjoyed his job and was interested in making the business a success for its new owners, but experienced considerable stress in not being able to understand the language in which managers spoke and operated.

Mr Park said his salary which was due at the end of June last year was paid 10 days late and from then on was always paid late – sometimes by as much as a month.

In October, he received no pay at all and had to borrow money from family to meet his monthly financial commitments.

He resigned on November 7 and complained to the tribunal that he had been forced to resign.

The tribunal said it was satisfied that by failing to pay Mr Park’s wages on time over a period of five months and by passing instructions to him and conversing in a language he did not understand the company must be seen to have acted in a way that was likely to or calculated to fracture the trust and confidence of the employment relationship.

Employment judge, Vic Craig, added they were satisfied Mr Park left his employment as a result of the material breaches of contract by failing to pay him his wages while absent due to illness, late payments in June, July and August, and no payment at all for October.

The Edinburgh tribunal held Mr Park of High Meadow, Carluke, who earned £21,000 a year, had been constructively and unfairly dismissed and awarded him £3437 compensation and a further £4354 for unpaid wages and holiday pay.

Livingston Football Club Limited was not represented at the tribunal hearing.