DECISIONS
The Union successfully argued that the Employer was not justified in conducting post-incident testing of the grievor. The arbitrator held that slowly driving a forklift to within 3-5 feet of another person before stopping and alerting them was not a “significant incident”. In any event, the Employer had failed to sufficiently investigate the incident.
Read the decision here.
The arbitrator agreed with the union that the results of drug testing that was ruled to be improper, including any evidence that flowed directly from the testing (referral to an IME doctor, monitoring, etc), was not admissible in the proceeding. To admit the evidence would tacitly condone improper drug testing. In doing so the arbitrator disagreed with an approach found in some Alberta cases, including ATCO Electric [2017] A.G.A.A. No. 7, a case which employer’s typically rely upon to seek to admit such evidence.
Read the case here.
The Union successfully argued that the Employer did not have the right to require the greivor to take a urine test pursuant to its substance use policy. The Arbitrator agreed with the Union that the Employer did not have reasonable grounds to insist on a urine test, including because there were no signs of impairment. The Arbitrator further agreed with the Union that whether it has grounds to demand a breath test (for alcohol), a urine test (for drug use), or both, must be considered by the Employer and it is not automatic that just because the Employer had reasonable grounds to demand a breath test, that it had grounds to demand a urine test.
View the case here.
The Employer unilaterally created an afternoon shift that had not been negotiated with the Union and assigned an employee to it. All shifts in the agreement had traditionally been negotiated. The Arbitrator agreed with the Union that the Employer could not create a non negotiated shift (except for abnormal or emergency circumstances) and allowed the grievance.
The take away is that when parties negotiate specific shifts and hours for employees those must be respected and cannot be unilaterally changed pursuant to “management rights”.
The case can be read here.
Tamara Ramusovic and Natasha Edgar, on behalf of the Union, successfully defended a judicial review petition seeking to overturn a labour arbitrator’s decision. The BC Supreme Court dismissed the employer’s petition for reason of undue delay in filing the petition with the Court. Although there were no applicable statutory timeframes for the filing of the petition, we successfully argued that in the circumstances of the case, the employer’s delay in seeing judicial relief was unreasonable and undermined the proper functioning of labour dispute resolution in general, and the parties’ contractual choices about how to resolve their disputes under their collective agreement.
Richard Edgar and Natasha Edgar, on behalf of the Union, successfully argued that the employer was in breach of the Collective Agreement when it contracted out maintenance work. This decision ended many years of improper contracting out by the Employer which was undermining of the bargaining unit.
Tamara Ramusovic and Natasha Edgar, on behalf of the Union, successfully grieved the termination of the grievor for sleeping on the job. The arbitrator ordered the grievor reinstated to his previous position.
Reconsideration of BCLRB Decision No. B48/2019. The Original Panel’s conclusion that Local 739 met the Provincial Character requirement was rationally and reasonably supported by the evidence, and the Original Panel made its finding the finding was made in a manner consistent with the evidentiary onus required of Local 739 as a long-standing BC local of a well-known national union.
Working on Coast Salish Territory - shared lands of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) & səlil̓wətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), whom we thank for their forbearance.
