Two young men were fired from Tegel Foods’ chicken factory in New Plymouth after riding a conveyor belt and putting footage of the event on social media.
Kaleb
Parkinson, 21, and a co-worker rode on a conveyor belt while machinery had broken
down elsewhere and the workers were waiting for engineers to assess the issue.
“We decided to
let off some steam, so I got my cellphone out of my locker and recorded my
workmate riding a conveyor belt,” Fairfax reports Parkinson as saying.
“It was just a
bit of silly fun.”
Parkinson said the incident
happened on September 26. Tegel became aware of the prank after Parkinson posted
a video on Facebook.
TVNZ
reports that Tegel fired the two for OH and S failures, dishonesty and
misconduct reasons.
“We take employees safety very carefully
and we take food safety very carefully,” Tegel’s human resources manager, Evelyn Davis, was quoted as saying.
Image: Fairfax
