Union drops flag flap

Grievance against municipal councillor a "misunderstanding", says union

A municipal union dropped its grievance against a Scugog, Ont., municipal councillor for lowering the town hall flag to half mast on the weekend following the death of a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan.

In Scugog Township, unionized municipal employees are supposed to raise and lower the Canadian flag on township properties, according to CUPE Local 1785-01's collective agreement with the municipality.

Scugog Councillor Lynn Philip Hodgson heard about the death of Canadian medic Cpl. Andrew James Eykelenboom in Kandahar on a Saturday afternoon in mid-August.

Instead of calling someone into work on the weekend, Hodgson, who was in Port Perry, Ont., where the Scugog municipal town hall is located, decided to lower the flag himself as a sign of respect for the fallen soldier.

The union filed a grievance against Hodgson for doing a unionized worker's job. The union told the local paper, the Scugog Standard, and the Toronto Sun that the grievance wasn't about the $120 in overtime the worker would have been paid to lower the flag, but about a violation of the collective agreement.

The union dropped the grievance on Sept. 1 and said it was all a "misunderstanding."

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