He was a mill operator and had been fired at the end of his 6 month probationary period for two reasons. The first being that he had gotten covid and the flu resulting in about 2 weeks missed throughout the whole 6 months. The second being that they 'weren't happy with where he was at'.
The second point is ridiculous to me, as he was paired with a man P, who was the big boss's brother. P is renowned for being an overall terrible person to work with. He does not teach new employees despite instruction to do so, does not socialise with other workers even in the smallest sense e.g. grunts and mutters gestures and doesn't even make eye contact. I've heard countless stories from two other workers about how P is a terrible person who does not communicate and is blantently extremely rude.
My friend was at a big disadvantage being paired with him, and their manager R, was aware of this. R moved my friend to work with a different person N, after 5 months after acknowledging that P was extremely difficult to learn/work with. P had also been bad mouthing my friend about how he didn't know what to do, despite barely teaching him anything, of at all properly.
Now one month after this change, my friend has had a meeting where he has been fired. R had apparently tried to extend his probation, but otherwise did nothing to fight for him despite knowing full well why he wasn't quite up to scratch. R had even acknowledged to my friend, the massive improvements since finally being able to switch my friend over to working with N.
I also want to add, that despite P being so shit, my friend managed to figure out most of what to do from other workers outside of work hours.
I feel that this is an issue of Nepotism in P's part, and negligence in R's. Can my friend do anything about this?
On top of that: he has been given no notice, and is no longer working there as of the day he has been fired.