Cummins wants to mutter about “hostile tone” and gross misconduct like that settles the matter. Fine. Let’s treat that story seriously for once. Because if Steve Morley’s version is that HR was subjected to something so grave for roughly six months, then the first question is not about me. It is about him. Why was I not warned? Why was I not managed properly? Why was I not dealt with as someone with a mental health condition present and documented? And why, if this was all so serious, were the people he now hides behind left to supposedly endure it for month after month without him doing his job?
The Gross Misconduct Fairy Tale
Part of my dismissal case rested on allegations about the “tone” of emails.
Not a punch-up on the shop floor. Not some sudden dramatic eruption. Emails.
And not emails sent in a nice clean vacuum either. These were emails sent over a period of roughly six months with a mental health condition present and documented. That context is not some optional footnote Cummins gets to snip off when it becomes inconvenient. It is central.
Because the trick is obvious enough. Strip out the fit notes. Strip out the deterioration. Strip out the depression and anxiety context. Strip out the pressure. Strip out the months. Then hold up the word “tone” as if it floated into existence all by itself, spotless and self-contained, ready to be boxed up as misconduct.
Convenient, that.
If It Was So Serious, Why Was I Not Warned?
This is the bit Steve Morley cannot wriggle away from.
Cummins’ own case stretched across roughly six months. So let’s run with its framing for a minute and see where it leads. If my emails were truly so hostile, so harmful and so unacceptable that they later helped underpin dismissal, why was I not properly warned at the time?
Why no timely intervention?
Why no proper line in the sand?
Why no meaningful disability-sensitive response?
Why no serious management step aimed at stopping the alleged problem while it was supposedly live?
Why, if HR was really being subjected to something so intolerable, was I left unwarned for months and they were left to allegedly endure it?
That is not competent management. That is either negligence or stockpiling.
If it was really gross misconduct, Steve Morley failed to protect his own HR department for the best part of half a year.
If it was not treated that seriously at the time, then the later gross misconduct theatre starts looking suspiciously inflated.
There is no flattering version.
Mental Health Present And Documented
Cummins would love this to be read as some neat little character defect. A simple story about a difficult employee and some “nasty” emails. Like saying “You there?”, hint of sarcasm, whilst being ignored for prolonged periods whilst they got their lying ducks in a row.
That is not the reality I lived.
All of this happened while I was signed off with depression and anxiety. A mental health condition was present and documented. I say I was being ignored and, in my view, deliberately provoked. Then the resulting deterioration gets lifted out of that context and repackaged later as a conduct issue. Emotional dysregulation happens to be a recognised symptom. Basic research on said condition before making ignorant comments about it is seemingly not a symptom of either Cummins or Newcastle Employment Tribunal.
That is not duty of care. That is managerial alchemy.
Turn distress into misconduct.
Turn context into inconvenience.
Turn a struggling worker into a dismissal file.
And once you see the trick, you cannot unsee it. The receipts will all arrive in time. Once we exhaust the exhausting and increasingly fanciful prospect of getting any joy out of a system dodgier than Cummins. Same ethical vacuum, more undeserved pomp.
A Reminder Is Always Good Value
As I wrote before, Steve Morley is “the man who bends timelines”.
That reminder is always good value.
Because once you have seen one Cummins process start smelling bent, the next one does not get the benefit of the doubt just because HR says everything was terribly serious this time. In the Harsley mess, the public record already left Cummins looking cold, sloppy and selective when sickness absence got in the way. So no, Morley does not get to arrive in this story wrapped in managerial credibility. He arrives with form.
That matters here. Cummins wants to mutter about six months of alleged hostility, gross misconduct and the welfare of HR as though Steve Morley was some noble custodian of standards. Fine. Then answer the obvious question. If it was really that serious, why was I not warned. Why was there no meaningful intervention. Why were the people he now hides behind allegedly left to endure it for months while he sat on his hands.
A reminder is always good value when the same man keeps turning up wherever timelines start smelling bent.
Judge Sweeney Seemed Remarkably Relaxed
Judge Sweeney, who managed to concede none of the points I put to the tribunal, seemed entirely nonplussed by Steve Morley’s failure to protect his HR staff from six months of allegedly hostile emails with a mental health condition present and documented throughout.
No proper warning.
No meaningful intervention.
No urgency.
No obvious managerial competence.
Just six months of supposed suffering and a tribunal apparently content to step around the glaring hole in the story. Either Steve was too busy in his office straightening his Rachel Reeves poster to protect his staff, or the whole thing was fiction. Both feel plausible.
I had, of course, made a pre-hearing complaint about Judge Sweeney beforehand, which I am sure was completely unrelated to his many, many blind spots. We will tell that story in due course. For now, let’s just say he seemed far less troubled by Steve Morley’s protection vacuum than one might have hoped.
Promotion, LinkedIn Thirst And The Standard Cummins Rewards
And after all that, what did Cummins do with Steve Morley?
Did it stop and ask whether this was really the gold standard of people management?
Did it wonder whether a man who either failed to protect HR for six months or quietly built a case while leaving everybody to marinate deserved more responsibility?
No.
He got promoted.
Of course he did.
That tells you plenty about the standard Cummins rewards. Not judgment. Not care. Not timely intervention. Not competence. Just the ability to help produce the ending the company wants, then keep a straight face while the people-and-culture guff keeps pouring out.
And then there is the Rachel Reeves sideshow. Reeves visits the Darlington plant on the campaign trail and Steve apparently decides the next phase of leadership is hovering round LinkedIn tapping “like” like a sixth-former with a crush. Maybe Cummins calls that strategic networking. Maybe it is just embarrassing. Either way, she does not want you, Steve.
The Brochure Version And The Real One
That is what makes the whole thing so rancid.
Cummins loves the brochure version of itself. Leadership. Wellbeing. Development. Support. Potential. Culture. The usual polished mulch rolled out for shareholders, candidates and useful idiots who still think a human capital report is a moral document.
Lovely.
None of it cleans up a six-month timeline where the company now wants the moral drama of “hostility” and “gross misconduct” without the burden of having acted like the issue was truly serious when it mattered. I did get a leaflet though, I concede. They’ve contracted employee well-being out to a phone number.
No proper warning.
No meaningful intervention.
A mental health condition present and documented.
Then promotion.
A point that “Director of Ethics” Kevin Graham “overlooked” too, after I approached HQ about the bollocks that goes down at Darlington. But the plant is profitable though, so… priorities.
That is Cummins’ idea of standards.
LOL.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project