There has been a rally of support for a cleaner who was fired from her job after she was caught eating a tuna sandwich that she found in a law firm's meeting room.
As reported by the Daily Mail, 39-year-old single mother Gabriela Rodriguez was let go from her $17.00-an-hour job (£13.50-an-hour) after she was seen eating a $1.89 tuna and cucumber sandwich that she claims had been leftover in a meeting room at the central London HQ of law firm Devonshires.
Rodriguez told The Sun that she was fired by her former bosses, Total Clean, after the law firm allegedly claimed that sandwiches were not being returned. In a statement to The Times, the law firm claims that they did not made a formal complaint to the cleaning company, and "expressly told" Rodriguez's bosses not to take action against her.
Nevertheless, the Daily Mail has since shared the letter boss Graham Petersen sent to Rodriguez, in which he stated: "At the hearing your explanation was that you found a sandwich in the kitchen near the end of your shift and took it without giving it a second thought.
"You stated that previously the client had left food in the kitchen and offered it out, so you thought it was fine.
'I considered your explanation to be unsatisfactory because you confirmed that no one had offered you the food in the kitchen but decided to take it anyway."
Petersen claims that Rodriguez eating the sandwich was "a fundamental breach" of her "contractual terms" - and that her actions "irrevocably destroyed the trust and confidence necessary to continue the employment relationship".
After writing that he had weighed up several lesser options, he decided that firing Rodriguez would be the "appropriate" course of action. "You are therefore dismissed with immediate effect from Total Clean," the letter concludes. "You are not entitled to notice or pay in lieu of notice."
She is now suing her former employers for unfair dismissal.
Rodriguez has received support from the United Voices of the World union, which supports migrant workers.
In a Facebook post, representatives from the group wrote: "Gabriela is an Ecuadorian single mother who after 2 years cleaning the offices of a corporate law firm was summarily sacked just before Christmas on grounds of 'theft' - the 'theft' in question being a £1.50 Tesco tuna sandwich that she ate which was left over from a lawyers meeting, and was due to be discarded.
"Sacking cleaners on ridiculous grounds like this - treating them like the dirt they clean - is not uncommon though is always outrageous and in UVW we always fight back.
"We are taking the case to court but that takes time, and justice delayed is justice denied, so in the meantime we'll be doing what we do best and fighting back through direct action."
The group has since shared a video of them approaching the law firm with "300 tuna sandwiches and 100 cans of tuna".
