JOB LOSS AFTER DRUG FIND 'REASONABLE'

A former employee at Affco's Horotiu meatworks who was dismissed for
drug possession has failed in her attempt to get her job back.

Sharon Marfell took her personal grievance claim to the Employment
Relations Authority after she was fired last year shortly after
cannabis was found in her car in the staff carpark.

The drugs were found after managers at the Affco plant organised a
random drug search of the premises on June 18 by a handler using a
specially trained dog.

The recently released findings from the authority said the dog and
handler Peter White located a metal tin containing cannabis in the car
which Affco said Ms Marfell admitted was hers.

She was suspended from work and dismissed the next
day.

The company said the cannabis found in Ms Marfell's car amounted to
possession of illegal drugs on its premises and it was entitled to
dismiss her under its zero tolerance policy.

In 2005, cameras were installed at the Horotiu plant to monitor and
stamp out alleged incidents of staff drug-taking.

Ms Marfell said the dismissal was unjustified because she did not make
the admission relied on by the company and she did not know that
either the tin or the cannabis inside it were in her car.

She said the company unfairly applied its zero tolerance policy rather
than considering her explanation.

During the hearing Mr White alleged that he found empty P bags in Ms
Marfell's car and in her handbag.

He said she told him that she had used P in the past, most recently
the previous weekend, a statement Ms Marfell denied making.

Mr White said his search dog showed interest in the area under the
driver's seat where he found a small silver tin containing cannabis.

He said Ms Marfell was standing near the car and he showed her the tin
and that she said: "Ah, I was wondering where that was."

The hearing heard that he asked if it was her tin and she replied yes.
He then asked her what was in it and she replied: "Just weed."

Ms Marfell strongly denied key parts of that conversation, the most
important being that she said the tin contained weed before being
shown its contents by Mr White.

She accepted that she acknowledged the tin was hers but it had been
missing.

She also denied saying she had used P on the previous
weekend.

Her explanation for the presence of the tin, its contents and the P
bags was that a friend had borrowed her car and left them in it.

Ms Marfell said she would not have knowingly left any drugs in her car
as she regularly visited her partner in prison, where visitors' cars
were searched.

The authority ruled that Horotiu plant manager Jamie Ginder's decision
to dismiss Ms Marfell was one "that a fair and reasonable employer
would have made in all the circumstances at that time".