WASTE RECYCLING
JOHN CRAWFORD
JOHN trained at Saltcoats Burgh in the late 60s. After a decade he moved to PD Beatwaste Ltd/ Wimpey Waste Management Ltd. He then joined the Civil Engineering Dept at Strathclyde University before posts at Renfrew, Hamilton, Inverness and East Ayrshire Councils. A Fellow of CIWM, he served on their Scottish Centre Council from 1988-2009. He is a Fellow of the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland and was their President between 1991-92.
With reference to...
READERS may recall the tragedy in Glasgow during December 2014 when a council driver lost consciousness and his RCV injured and killed several pedestrians. The council recently lost a court case where they’d argued that if the driver’s job reference had mentioned his previous health history (allegedly that he’d suffered blackouts at the wheel in the past), they’d never have employed him, and his former employers should now be held responsible for compensating the bereaved families and those injured. The judge’s view was that it was for an individual’s potential employers to satisfy themselves about the suitability of applicants, and not rely on references.
The first reference I ever wrote was soon after being promoted at Saltcoats in 1972. A site agent for a contractor building new council houses for us told me he’d applied for another job and needed a reference at very short notice. I simply wrote I’d known him for a few months while he was working on our contract. He wasn’t best pleased when he read it, but I was quite relieved a few months later when
A year later we were recruiting a new burgh foreman and one applicant from a nearby council sent in a glowing reference from a senior councillor. The night before the interviews, that councillor phoned my boss to say: “On no account employ him as he’s completely untrustworthy.”
This guy could break Tonka trucks, so don’t hire him."
I learned he’d just been fired the day he asked me for the reference and he’d subsequently produced it at a tribunal, claiming unfair dismissal (he didn’t win).
In 1974 when Scottish councils were reorganised, one chap was appointed to a senior post in the north of Scotland and it was only some months afterwards that it emerged that he’d omitted to point out having served six months in jail some years earlier after a conviction for job-related extortion. But as none of his previous employers (on either side of the jail term) had mentioned this in their references, his new bosses decided to ‘overlook the omission’!
When I joined Beatwaste in 1978, we had a driver vacancy and I phoned the last employer of an applicant who seemed to be the best candidate to be told: “This guy could break Tonka trucks, so don’t hire him.” Very naively, I used this as a reason for not taking the applicant on, unaware he’d immediately challenge his former boss. And so I (justifiably) then had to take an earful of abuse from the latter!
So the message is clear: don’t accept job references at face value. Do some rooting about and if your gut feeling is that there’s something not quite right, then don’t ignore it.
There was a story circulating last autumn about the American employer who asked about three missing years on an applicant’s CV to be told: “I was in Yale.” The interviewer was very impressed.
“That’s good enough for me; you’re hired.” Then said the applicant, “Brilliant. It’s so good to get a job at last...”
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