A traffic controller who was found “incredibly intoxicated” and urinating on the side of a work truck said he was only joking when he texted his colleagues asking them to meet up for beers and “weed” at work.

Jason Joyce was dismissed by Traffix (2020) Limited after a night of drinking onsite during work hours, after which he drove home drunk despite supervisors urging him not to.

He later went to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA), claiming it was in fact his supervisor who was drunk and had “seriously assaulted” him, blaming the company for favouring the supervisor over him.

However, the recently released ERA decision has declined Joyce’s application for raising a personal grievance, stating Traffix was reasonable to dismiss him.

Joyce was employed by Traffix as a traffic controller and began working in March 2021.

On October 21 that year Joyce sent a text to other Traffix employees around 2pm asking if they wanted to join him for food and drinks at his worksite on View Rd, where he was carrying out traffic management during the night.

“You bring food, drinks and we will supply music and intetainment [sic]. So bring your beers, weed. Bawa hahaha after 9.00pm tonight View Road,” the text read.

He signed off the message with his name and those of his supervisor and another worker, referred to in the decision as Mr B and Mr A respectively. Both Mr A and Mr B were on-site with Joyce.

Two supervisors, who had been told about the text by other employees, made an unannounced visit to the site at the end of their shift at 3am.

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They found Joyce urinating against the side of a work truck, and he appeared drunk. Empty bottles and cans of alcohol were scattered on the deck of the truck.

The supervisors took photos of some of the cans before heading back to the depot about 10 minutes away and informing another employee of what was going on.

Around 4am, Joyce, Mr A and Mr B arrived back at the depot in the work truck.

One supervisor said Mr A and Mr B appeared to be struggling to get Joyce out of the truck, resulting in “a little pushing of one another on the road as [Joyce] was so drunk”.

Joyce then went to his car, but supervisors followed him and began talking to him through the window, urging him not to drive home.

“It was apparent not only by the smell but the slurred speech and slouched appearance that [Joyce] was highly intoxicated,” one supervisor stated.

Another supervisor said both Mr A and Mr B appeared to be sober.

The supervisor asked Joyce if he had been drinking to which he replied “yes”. She asked him “how could someone be so foolish to risk all our jobs like that” before Joyce drove away.

However, he circled back “yelling obscenities” before driving off again.

The next morning Traffix managing director Michael Eremin spoke to Joyce on the phone, stating he was “argumentative and sounded drunk” during the call.

The following week Eremin organised a meeting with Joyce, who was accompanied by an employment advocate.

During the meeting, Joyce accepted he sent the text to other workers about coming to the site with beers and “weed” but said he only meant it as a joke and denied drinking any alcohol.

Instead, he said it was Mr B who was drunk and “seriously assaulted” him. Eremin took this to be a reference to the “light tussle” after Mr B pulled Joyce out of the work truck when they arrived back at the depot at 4am.

However, a letter sent by his advocate after his dismissal said Joyce was assaulted around 2am, claiming Mr B had asked Joyce to take him to a service station to get more alcohol.

That version of events was that when Joyce protested Mr B drinking more he said Mr B “dragged” him out of the high seat of the truck and he fell and hit his head.

Following another meeting Joyce was dismissed for “serious misconduct”.

A disciplinary meeting was also held with Mr B, who accepted he had failed to perform his duties as a supervisor by letting Joyce drink onsite.

Mr B said his actions were “poor” and he should have been in control of what was happening onsite, but he denied hitting Joyce.

ERA member Robin Arthur said two supervisors, the office manager, and the scheduler, who all spoke to Mr B, said he showed no signs that he had been drinking.

Arthur also said Eremin was able to view the depot CCTV footage that didn’t match up to Joyce’s account of things.

Arthur found that Traffix was not unjustified in dismissing Joyce and had done what a “fair and reasonable” employer could have done to investigate its concerns.

Joyce’s application for a finding he had a personal grievance was declined and costs were reserved for the parties to resolve.

-Emily Moorhouse, Open Justice