Check-in agent takes Aurigny to court

Friday 10 January 2020

A former Aurigny check-in agent is battling the airline in an employment tribunal after a back injury caused by a luggage handling mishap left her unable to work.

Tracy Fallaize has appealed to Guernsey's Employment and Discrimination Tribunal, claiming constructive dismissal, following a series of events that started with the workplace accident on 2 July 2018.

She had received a call from a passenger that morning who had four bags to collect from the arrivals hall. When she got there, she found four large bags which were labelled as 'heavy', weighing around 32kg each.

Mrs Fallaize said she didn't feel she could just leave them, and had previously been told at the time of the call that everyone else was busy.

Mrs Fallaize lifted one of the bags onto the trolley, and was lifting another on top of it when she "felt her back go."

She reported the incident to a colleague and supervisor, who gave her permission to go home before the end of her shift if she chose to. 

As part of her work pattern, she then had three days off work; she said she had rested for the first two before taking her granddad out for lunch on his birthday on the third day, helping him in and out of her car and into his wheelchair.

Pictured: Mrs Fallaize said a text message she sent to a colleague after her workplace accident was not an accurate account of what actually happened. 

In a text to a colleague, shared by Appleby Senior Associate Keira Gore, representing Aurigny, Mrs Fallaize said she had done her back in lifting her grandad - a message she acknowledged "sounded bad" to the tribunal. She told the panel that she saw her grandad every week and that her injury was not linked to that - she regularly helped him in and out of the car without causing herself any injury. 

After the three days elapsed, she went to the doctor and was signed off for a week. She then returned to work for around five weeks, "struggling through" and working in what she described as “excruciating pain” before deciding she could continue no longer.

Mrs Fallaize was signed off with long-term sickness absence on 12 August. After Mrs Fallaize's Doctor said she was unable to carry out a job lifting, twisting or stretching, a meeting was held to discuss alternative roles she could fulfil. 

No suitable roles with vacancies could be agreed upon, and although Mrs Fallaize asked for a part-time job in accounts, Aurigny said there were no positions available in that department at that time. 

Ms Gore said the HR Manager had suggested that Mrs Fallaize's osteopath could visit the workplace at Aurigny’s expense to identify any adjustments that could assist Mrs Fallaize; however, this was not something the osteopath was open to doing. 

Ms Gore said the staff members handling the process had shown nothing but "kindness and understanding" towards her after he accident. 

"You didn’t take any objections to the way this meeting was conducted at the time," she said in her cross-examination of Mrs Fallaize. "The impression you gave was that you were pleased that they weren’t pressurising you back into work."

Mrs Fallaize faced more time out of work through sickness absence and described a meeting on 21 February 2019, where no progress was made, as being the "last straw". She had been through so much physically, had suffered a "lifelong neck injury" and felt that after going out of her way to be a good employee and colleague, her efforts had not been reciprocated by her employer. 

"I felt I wasn’t being looked after or cared for," she said. "I felt like they could have found me a couple of hours work per day at the very least. 

After a fortnight of deliberation, she decided to resign.

"I didn’t believe I was going to get anything to be honest and I felt really low. I just lost the trust at that point." 

She added: "This is not a personal thing against any individual and when I gave my resignation letter to [the HR Manager] I said “I appreciate everything you have done”. I just feel the company themselves, whoever made the decision, had let me down."

Pictured: Former Aurigny employee Tracy Fallaize said she still did not know whether she should have lifted the passenger's bags or not, blaming her training in this area. 

The same ran true for her training, which she claimed was flawed: "I still don’t know if I should have been lifting those bags or not."

Ms Gore said Aurigny objected to Mrs Fallaize's claims about not finding a solution for her, as the HR Manager was still actively searching for an alternative role up until Mrs Fallaize's resignation. 

Aurigny had gone "above and beyond" their responsibilities as an employer, she said, and nothing had been done either individually or cumulatively that amounted to a fundamental breach of the terms and conditions of Mrs Falllaize's employment. 

The airline said that while the accident had happened in the workplace, the injury was not its fault.

Ms Gore submitted that there was no proof that the injury was caused by that accident, or if it was caused by lifting her grandad or even a pre-existing degenerative disease.

She argued that the correct place for Mrs Fallaize to seek compensation was the civil courts, as Ms Gore advised the tribunal to reject the appeal. 

A verdict is expected four to six weeks after the end of the hearing.