A Lidl manager is suing his former bosses after the budget supermarket chain sacked him for working too hard.
The dedicated employee — named only as Jean P. by Spanish media in Barcelona — would regularly arrive at his branch by 5am. He’d then spend hours shelf-stacking, checking orders, and price-checking to make sure the branch was ready for when sales staff arrived.
But bosses dismissed him, claiming he’d breached Lidl’s rules banning unpaid overtime. A dismissal letter accused him of “very serious laboural unfulfillment” after regional bosses reviewed the shop’s CCTV footage.
Bosses say he often started work up to an hour and a half before clocking in, and was regularly in the branch alone — also a breach of company rules. Lidl’s dismissal letter cited a regulation banning unpaid overtime, stating that “every minute worked is paid, and every minute that is worked should be clocked in.”
But an employment court heard that Lidl admitted it had never instructed Jean — who’d worked for the company for 12 years — not to come in early. His lawyer, Juan Guerra, argued that Lidl only benefited from any breach of the rules.
“He is sanctioned for working too much — something that is unusual — and also for making an effort to get the shop running properly,” Guerra said.
The lawyer claimed his client only worked longer hours because he was under pressure to meet sales and performance targets during a restructuring programme. “The heads of the supermarket knew this and were aware that these changes required time and dedication,” he said.
