A trade unionist at the centre of a row in one of Scotland’s biggest colleges was fired for gross misconduct in a previous job.
Penny Gower, whose union has run an industrial action ballot over issues including her alleged treatment by Edinburgh College, was also described in a 2010 tribunal ruling as “untruthful”, “evasive” and “disingenuous”.
Gower, a member of the Socialist Workers Party, was also told to pick up the £10,000 expenses bill by the tribunal.
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Edinburgh College was formed in 2012 through the merger of three separate institutions in the Lothians. It has up to 20,000 students and employs hundreds of teaching staff.
However, it is alleged that Gower, the local Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) union rep, was threatened with disciplinary action by the college amid a row over a lecturer who had been sacked.
The union's consultative ballot was related to both issues and staff voted yes on whether they would be prepared to back measures such as a strike.
The indicative vote would need to be followed by a statutory ballot of EIS members before a strike could take place.
This newspaper can reveal a damning judge’s ruling into another dispute involving Gower, which contained serious criticisms of her.
In 2009, Gower was sacked from her post at Carnegie College in Dunfermline after a row about health and safety.
According to the ruling, Gower wanted to complete a “general inspection” of the college before resuming her teaching duties after a period of sickness.
Gower told this newspaper on Saturday she had merely been carrying out a legal right to inspect as the college EIS safety rep.
The employer told her she should come back to work and carry out the inspection in parallel, but the judgment claimed she did her “own thing”.
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She took the college to an employment tribunal, but the panel rejected two of the three parts of her unfair dismissal claim.
In the decision section of the ruling, the employment judge wrote that the tribunal was “troubled by a number of passages of evidence which it heard from the claimant which it was unable to find either reliable or credible”.
The judge continued: “It [the tribunal] found her to be evasive and, on more than one occasion, disingenuous.
“It was a regular feature of the claimant’s evidence that she failed to answer direct questions giving instead answers that rambled on and, ultimately, went nowhere.”
The decision added: “Overall the Tribunal found the claimant to be an unimpressive witness on whose evidence, in matters of conflict, it could not rely.”
In a passage on medical issues, the tribunal “formed the view the claimant was being untruthful, either in her account to the GP or in her account to the Tribunal".
It added: “In either case that was damaging to her credibility.”
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On the specific incident that led to her dismissal, the judge stated: “She [Gower] had taken a decision, by herself, that she would not resume her contractual duties until she had completed that inspection. All other matters flowed from that decision.”
On the third part of the unfair dismissal claim, which was upheld, the college admitted to not following their own procedures.
However, the tribunal reduced Gower's £4,700 “basic award” to zero: “It was satisfied she was wholly responsible for her dismissal.”
The judge also noted there had been a protest outside the tribunal and the college’s computer system had been “inundated with round robin emails of support for the claimant from around the world".
However, the decision concluded: “The Tribunal could not help but reflect, like Macbeth, that while there was much sound and fury ultimately it signalled, if not nothing, then not a very great deal.”
It is understood the EIS paid the £10,000 expenses in the 2010 case.
Gower said: “The final ruling was that I had been unfairly dismissed, but had contributed to this dismissal. This judgment was not based on the evidence of events, but on motivation, whether I carried out a health and safety inspection or whether as the judge felt, it was nothing to do with health and safety but an example of bloody mindedness.”
An EIS spokesperson said: "This internal consultative ballot has now closed and the result will be reported to EIS Executive who will consider the result and agree any future steps. In the meantime, we will continue to seek dialogue with the college in the hope of agreeing a negotiated outcome."
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