This brought a snigger having been at the company back in the 90’s
Roll on Friday
Managers at Legal 500 bemoaned staff “banging on about their mental health” and said they had faces “like a smacked arse”.
The disparaging remarks came to light as part of a campaign by the Unite union to get two former employees reinstated after they were sacked from the legal directory last November.
Bosses at Legal 500, which is part of the Legalese group, told the two staff they were being dismissed due to “underperformance”. Unite has accused the company of inventing “bogus charges” to get rid of the pair because they were organising other employees to join the union.
Now candid messages have emerged which allegedly reveal Legal 500 managers discussing workers over an online app which was visible to other staff. According to Unite, the conversation went as follows:
“Should we bother giving them a bollocking or can we not be arsed?”
“It makes no difference. We’re just wasting our breath and we have to be all cuddly and nice or else they’ll start banging on about their mental health FFS.”
“It’s the blatant yawning and face like a smacked arse thing that really gets to me.”
“I want to smack people in the face tbh.”
“Haha – so do I!”
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said, “These messages are appalling and are reflective of the contempt that The Legal 500 shows to its workforce. They also demonstrate the appalling environment in which two of their employees were sacked on bogus charges for union organising. Unite will not tolerate this. The company now needs to reinstate these workers and get its house in order.”
Legal 500, which was accused of sharp practice while furloughing staff during the pandemic, did not respond to a request for comment, forgoing the chance to provide some exculpatory context for the messages.
Some readers may sympathise with supervisors struggling with an unmotivated team. Others may be disgusted. So ROF’s throwing it open to a poll:
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