Dundee City Council laid off six labourers before offering new contracts to five of them in a ploy to get rid of one worker.
The environment department made the six workers redundant due to what bosses claimed was a “downturn in current workload”.
But four of the six labourers returned within four weeks, while a temporary worker was employed instead of Mark McPhail, with bosses claiming that when he was laid off he had told one manager not to consider him for future work as he “wouldn’t work with these a*******s”.
An employment tribunal in Dundee agreed with Mr McPhail’s position that it was a “put-up job” and the managers had engineered the situation in order to get rid of him, there was no genuine redundancy situation and his dismissal was procedurally unfair.
Mr McPhail has been awarded almost £15,000. His solicitor is pursuing costs.
Rumours had been circulating prior to his termination date that Mr McPhail was the only one of the six who would not be offered a new contract, the tribunal heard. This was despite the fact he had been employed by the council on several short-term fixed contracts since 2008, he had two children and a large mortgage to pay.
He has remained out of work since being dismissed in September last year.
During evidence, his colleague John McIntosh said he had been told by site agent James Burke that he would definitely be re-employed and said of the process: “You know how it is. It is to get rid of Mark McPhail basically.”
Tribunal chairman Ian McFatridge criticised the evidence of managers, in particular that of head of construction Mark Ross, whose evidence “appeared to be simply untrue”.
He also discounted much of the evidence from former contracts assistant manager Geoffrey Burton, John Ness, acting contracts manager and Mr Burke.
“I did not find the respondents’ main witnesses credible and reliable in all respects,” he said. “I found some of their evidence was undoubtedly truthful However, I did not find their evidence as to how the claimant’s dismissal came about to be credible or reliable.”
A council spokesman said: “The council is studying the details of the findings.”