I've been disciplined for leaving work with an injury!?

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I'm fuming.

I don't know if I'm in the wrong though...

I work in a warehouse for canned soup and only went and dropped a packed box on my toe. I literally couldn't keep tears in and I'm not one to cry. I spoke to my manager who wanted to see it (fair enough) and I hadn't even looked at it at this point. It didn't look too bad. He said to take a break so I went on my break.

I put some ice on it and it started to swell, there was a bizarre lump on it and I couldn't wiggle it.

He said it's fine and just bruised and apparently had "seen enough in his time to know" and that even if it is broken, I can still work but he'll put me on a part where I get to just stand there. I did it for 30 mins and it wasn't helping, I could bare weight with a shoe on as it hurt and I said I'm going to have to go and put it up.

He said if it's broken you'll get away with walking out in a huffy voice

I was so sure it was I wasn't even worried about what might happen.

I got it looked at and it wasn't! They even said when I went in "should we even bother with an x ray" because they were so sure and after joked about what my bones must be made out off. I was happy but slightly worried about my manager.

I returned to work after a week (I had a doctors note) and I had a warning (official) for leaving work unauthorised?

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

I hate my job so much. This is literally the only job I got after about 100 interviews

Sounds like the managers being arsey.

When you get the steep toe capped boots definitely wear them, I worked in a paint factory & had to wear them.

Hope your toe feels better, I got arthritis in a small toe & when it got inflamed it was hard to walk.

The only think you are being disciplined for is the leaving work unauthorised. So did you tell anyone you were leaving?

This x 1000

Your manager is behaving like a complete shit.

As long as you didn't just leave without telling anyone, appeal against the warning on the grounds that you had to leave to get an injury medically examined. (If you have any notes given by A&E, or a discharge letter to your GP, attach it as evidence). The disciplinary procedure will explain how to appeal and what the deadlines are for doing so.

Ask at work where the RIDDOR forms/book are kept and complete an accident report. Make it clear that your protective footwear had not yet been provided.

Start a claim with one of these accident/PI firms that advertise all over the place.

Soft tissue injuries can have long term implications (I still suffer as a result of a badly sprained ankle that happened in 1983), so need to be properly treated, which means resting them. Going home was the right thing to do.

Scrub all the above if you're in a union, just speak to your union rep and they'll sort it.

Letting people work in that sort of environment without PPE is dangerous and (probably) illegal. Employers like this make my blood boil.

Of course that's not the only issue. OP had spoken repeatedly to her manager about her injury and should have been sent straight off to hospital, or at the very least to home to rest. An employer that takes this incident as a disciplinary offence is a really poor employer. No doubt also they are pissed off as reporting the incident will bring to light the fact that OP wasn't wearing appropriate safety equipment and the HSE will be unimpressed.

OP, I hope your toe is better. I had similar a few years ago, right through to being x-rated on suspicion of a broken foot, and could barely walk for days.

X-rayed. I'm rarely x-rated.

I would raise a grievance immediately about the lack of PPE
They have a duty to provide you with protective footwear - they didn't.You will almost certainly have a claim for any lost pay
If you had NOT gone to the hospital and continued working, you may have caused your foot further damage and exacerbated any injury.If this finished up in court any compensation would be reduced to reflect this (this happened to my neighbour)
Speak to CAB without delay

Also as others have said a RIDDO report should happened.

I used to work in HR and for the last 17 years I have worked self employed as a chiropist....I know about feet. You absolutely can need foot rest for an non broken toe injury. Bruising to the bone is exceptional painful and takes a while to come out and past. Soft tissue damage is painful and causes swelling and does not show up on an xray. The immediate treatment here is critical.....elevation of the leg....ice compress.it was not unreasonable for a member of staff to need to have the foot xrayed after dropping a heavy item on it. Unless the employee was medically trained and in a position to make the call that there was no fracture....they had no legal right to deny you leaving to go to hospital. You should not have been working in a warehouse without the correct safety clothing. There is no 'optional'.....either you lift and vary and therefore should have protective footwear provided by them or you don't and. In this case, you should have been adequately protected once you were asked to work in the warehouse. Get legal advice

As long as you didn't just leave without telling anyone, appeal against the warning on the grounds that you had to leave to get an injury medically examined.

That is what the disciplinary was for and many have asked but the OP hasnt answered as to whether they walked out.

Frankly the OP was justified in leaving without telling anyone if they were trying to pressure her into not getting medical attention. There is a context to this. Either they didn't want to lose her labour or they were nervous of their optional safety equipment being brought to light, or both.

given what you said about 100 job application I would approach this collaboratively with a smile on your face, and educate yourself on HSE policy and your staff handbook

CrackedEgg has nailed it, question is do you want to stay and help them improve or leave and then be stuck applying for work again....

read this for starters:
www.hse.gov.uk/pUbns/priced/hsg76.pdf

I'm so sorry, OP. They sound like complete shits and probably non-compliant with H&S rules (assuming the Tories haven't got rid of them all).

It's tough having to work in job like that. Given that you've applied for 100 others unsuccessfully, I'm not going to be one of those to tell you to look out for another job, or indeed to travel back in time and buy some steel-capped boots.

Do you have to sign in and out, did you tell your manager you were leaving? If you did, the accident was recorded and you had a fit note then it seems unfair. However if you effectively walked off the job and didn't notify your absence according to the procedures to control who was on site then it could be a disciplinary issue.

You can’t just walk out of work and expect them to be okay with it.

Injury or not, most warehouse or low-paying jobs require you to be signed in/out. That’s not a dig at low-paid work - I do it and I can’t just leave for an appointment or because I’m sick without permission from my manager or whoever’s in charge that day.

Your manager sounds throughly unpleasant but that’s not the reason you’ve been disciplined. I assume there is a policy for absence and you haven’t followed it.

I said I'm going to have to go and put it up.

He said if it's broken you'll get away with walking out in a huffy voice

He knew she was going. There are no signing out implications. She didn't go AWOL. Her manager didn't want her to leave for an injury he, as an untrained person, had decided wasn't serious, but he was fully aware.

It says in the op that she said she had to go and get medical treatment before she left.

Her manager said she could only “get away” with going for treatment if it did turn out to be broken.

Clearly that is a desperately unfair withholding of authorisation. Nobody could know if it was broken or not and actually whether it was or not was irrelevant to the fact op could no longer do her job. She was put on crutches and signed off for a week (a warehouse worker on crutches is no use to anyone).

Magangers opinions do not override doctors regarding whether someone is fit for work or not (including leaving to seek medical treatment).

Your employer has a duty of care to guard your health and safety. Dropping heavy boxes on your foot is a foreseeable risk. By your supervisors own admission, dropping boxes on toes in a common occurrence.
Their risk assessment, saying that steelies are optional is insufficient mitigation of the risk posed by the identified hazard and they need to update it.
IMO (having working in construction H&S) is their risk assessment is crap & they put you to work in a hazardous environment with insufficient hazard controls in place.
Call the health and safety executive for advice on this, as had you not injured yourself, you wouldn’t need to have left

P.s. broken toe or not, you were not fit for the assigned task in your injured condition. Did the first aide forget about the “R”, “C” and “E” in the “RICE” acronym for treatment, that is Rest Ice Compression Elevation.

That said it is a non broken toe and a week off does sound excessive. Given the circumstances I might not take action but I’d be watching your absence and work ethic very carefully.

Tosh. The OP is doing manual work, standing all day and you can remote diagnose her as a 'needing to watch her work ethic' knowing zilch about her or the injury. Her employers failed to deliver the safety boots in time, her manager is appalling and opening up the company to a complaint.

I'm sure you managed to work with two broken legs whilst breastfeeding three sets of twins but for normal human beings dropping a box of tins of soup on your foot can cause serious damage (which will recur if not given time to repair).

This kind of bullying bad treatment has become pervasive amongst low paid insecure work, preying on the fact that people are desperate for that work. Any decent employer would value the loyalty which comes from employees feeling valued and appreciated instead of viewing staff as cheap canon fodder.

I assume there is a policy for absence and you haven’t followed it.

The policy has to be reasonable and safe. The OP was injured, the person who needs to authorise the absence was the same person who told her she had to get back to work despite a visible injury and in a task which his own first aider should have said was not doable.

Bloody hell - how many of you have genuinely dropped something like that on an unprotected toe?
It hurts. A lot.
It swells. A lot.
Once you take your shoe off - it’s not going back on in the near future.
Soft tissue injuries are agonising.
Legal issues aside (I have no clue, but you’ve had some good advice OP) your boss was unreasonable to say the least, especially if he’d seen your injury.
Make sure you photograph your foot too.
Hope it’s starting to improve

It doesn't sound like they've followed good practice here at all. Did they enter the injury into the accidents book? I think you should seek formal advice about this from someone knowledgable in HSE regulations.

This kind of bullying bad treatment has become pervasive amongst low paid insecure work, preying on the fact that people are desperate for that work. Any decent employer would value the loyalty which comes from employees feeling valued and appreciated instead of viewing staff as cheap canon fodder.

^^ Absolutely this.

Lots of alarm bells ringing here!

Your employer should be providing you with your safety boots FREE OF CHARGE - see: www.hse.gov.uk/toolbox/ppe.htm

Was this accidents RECORDED? All accidents have to be recorded in the Accident Book but only accidents that require more than 7 days off work are REPORTABLE. see: www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/reportable-incidents.htm

If the accidents are not being RECORDED, this is a major red flag for the HSE, who will also be interested in looking at the Risk Assessments and Method Statements prepared by the company to cover your work. I'm appalled that they consider safety boots to be OPTIONAL

Sounds as if your company is clueless and sloppy regarding to Health and Safety - the HSE don't like this type of crew. I'd give them a bell and see what they have to say.

Good luck!

Thought experiment:

What if a bottle of corrosives had burst and splashed in her eyes and her manager had acted in the same way? Would that justify seeking medical attention/absence?