The mother of a severely autistic Waitrose volunteer who ‘absolutely loved’ his role has told of her heartbreak after he was ‘sacked’ when she asked if he could be paid.
Tom Boyd, 27, had worked for more than 600 hours over the past four years at the supermarket’s branch in Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester.
His mother Frances Boyd and his support workers then asked Waitrose whether he could receive a small number of paid hours as recognition for his time and effort.
The store spoke to head office but they were alarmed by Mr Boyd’s amount of unpaid work and said he would not be able to work until they had resolved the situation.
Now, Ms Boyd has revealed her son ‘absolutely loved’ his job and how she hoped her coming forward could lead to better employment protection for disabled volunteers.
She told BBC Breakfast today: ‘He started at Waitrose because he was on a college placement. It began with one hour a week and it started building up over time as it progressed and got better at it and used to doing it and everything was working.
‘Eventually, when he left college we asked if he could increase that time to two days which it did. We thought this is working out, well why don’t we ask Waitrose if there is the possibility of paid work.’
Explaining his role at the store, Ms Boyd added: ‘He was bringing stock down from the stockroom, taking it onto the shop floor, stacking the shelves, tidying the shelves, putting everything in order and making sure everything was fully stocked.
Tom Boyd, 27, had worked for more than 600 hours over the past four years at Waitrose
Frances Boyd told BBC Breakfast that she asked Waitrose if her son could receive paid hours
Mr Boyd worked at the supermarket’s branch in Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester (above)
‘He absolutely loved it. He loved that sense of belonging and the structure of going to work and the independence it gave him and feeling like a working man.
‘We’ve told him he was a working man once he started to go out and finish college and he used to say: “I’m working like my dad and my brother”.’
Ms Boyd explained that she and her son were at first given hope that a request for paid work might be accepted.
She said: ‘They didn’t say no which gave us a feeling it was a possibility. There was no ‘no’ immediately, so we thought ‘there’s a chance here’.
‘But at the time they said come back to us, we’ve got perhaps recruitment in January and then we can look at it again.
‘Time just went by and I think by July of this year it went to head office, because they couldn’t make a decision within the store without taking it to head office. And once head office found out about it, the placement was stopped.’
Once the placement was ended, Ms Boyd said her son struggled to understand why he could no longer carry on working at Waitrose.
She continued: ‘We had to sort of make a story up and say that the shop was being cleaned temporarily and that he couldn’t go into work until they cleaned it and then he might be going back and we left it at that.’
Ms Boyd is hoping that shining a light on her son’s situation will reveal what she claimed was unfairness surrounding volunteering for disabled people.
She said: ‘People like Tom don’t fall under any rights under the Equality Act. When you volunteer, your job can end at any time and that’s not really fair, and we hope this is a lesson that we can all take forward and learn from and correct it.’
A Waitrose & Partners spokesman said: ‘We work hard to be an inclusive employer.
‘As part of this, we partner with a number of charities, including to provide work experience, and are well experienced in making reasonable adjustments to help people succeed at work.
‘We are sorry to hear of Tom’s story, and whilst we cannot comment on individual cases, we are investigating as a priority.’
