The Welsh National Opera unfairly laid off a long-serving worker who struggled to read and write. A judge found the Cardiff Bay-based opera company failed to offer support for John Hayel to apply for a new role when he faced redundancy.
Mr Hayel, aged 66 when laid off in 2021, had worked for the WNO since 1974. Without ever writing a memo or email, he had risen to the position of master carpenter and head of stage crew. He believed he was dyslexic, although his photographic memory helped hide his reading difficulties. Sometimes he would take a document to the bathroom and try to work out its meaning from the words he recognised.
He was among 12 stage crew members to bring unfair dismissal and age discrimination complaints against the WNO after a restructure. Judge Rachel Harfield found the company had fairly made 11 of the workers redundant — but she said "any reasonable line manager" would have offered support for Mr Hayel to apply for the new head of staging role given his literacy issues.
