Social work staff felt harassed, vulnerable and intimidated at approaches by two senior managers who tried to recruit them to an American-style sales network, a tribunal heard yesterday.

Depute social work director Andrew Reid said managers Frances Morgan, 42, and Matthew Monahan, 48, invited staff under their control to presentations at their homes highlighting the benefits of Amway, which sells cleaning fluids.

Mr Reid concluded both had abused their positions as managers and recommended disciplinary action. They were both sacked, but want the Glasgow employment tribunal hearing their unfair dismissal claims to order their reinstatement.

Mr Reid, who headed an inquiry, said: ''The first conclusion suggested Frances Morgan's involvement with Amway did not just take place in her private life. Approaches had not just been confined to personal friends and some of them were people for whom she had management responsibility.

''Staff felt harassed, vulnerable, intimidated. A range of staff felt the contact with them was inappropriate . . . Staff had been invited to presentations in her house, other senior managers had been involved in making presentations at her house.''

In Mr Monahan's case, Mr Reid said again that staff felt pressured, harassed and vulnerable.

''Matthew Monahan gave presentations to staff aimed at recruiting them and he was working along with other managers,'' he said, adding that he presented information to the disciplinary hearing about the Amway organisation taken from its website.

But witnesses who had given statements were not called to give evidence.

''A number of the witnesses had been quite distressed in giving evidence to the fact finding officers. A number of people felt they had been put under undue pressure. There were issues because the people who put them under undue pressure were their managers.''

Mr Monahan, of Renwick Place, Lanark, and Mrs Morgan, of Machrie Green, East Kilbride, who worked in old people's services within the social work department, both claim their sackings were unfair. Mrs Morgan's solicitor Malcolm Cameron argued Mr Reid's inquiry was ''inherently corrupt'' and its purpose was to obtain a certain result.

The hearing continues.