Worker tried to make supervisor look bad by not following procedure
This instalment of You Make the Call features an employee who didn’t seem to be too fond of her supervisor.
The employee was a custodian in the engineering building at Western University in London, Ont. Over time, she complained to the union and management about her treatment and eventually the university hired an independent investigator to examine the situation. In August 2009, the investigator found the supervisor was doing her job in a fair and reasonable manner and the custodian’s claims were unfounded.
On March 30, 2009, the custodian on the afternoon shift at the law school building was off work. It was a long-standing practice that in these circumstances, the custodian on the afternoon shift in the engineering building would go over and lock the law school building. The supervisor left a note for the custodian with the room numbers she would need to lock in the law school building when she went over there.
The supervisor ran into the custodian at the beginning of her shift and asked if she had seen the note about locking the law school classrooms when she went over to lock the building. The custodian responded in the affirmative.
The law school classrooms were locked, but the building itself was not. The daytime custodian told the custodian the next day he had found the building unlocked, and over the next two nights it remained unlocked.
The supervisor learned two days later the law school building had not been locked. The custodian said she hadn’t specifically been told to lock the building, just the classrooms. When the supervisor reminded her she had mentioned locking the building at the same time as locking the classrooms, the custodian said it wasn’t her problem if the supervisor wasn’t doing her job properly. At a meeting the next day, the custodian said the supervisor was lying about the reminder.
A couple of months later, the custodian told the supervisor there weren’t enough light bulbs for the display cases she was cleaning, but the supervisor knew she had ordered a full box. The custodian said she had looked in the cabinets and didn’t see them. Another employee checked one of the cabinets and found the lights, and the custodian said, “I guess I have to say sorry now.”
After another incident where the custodian complained about afternoon shifts after she had requested some, the university reviewed the custodian’s conduct. Eventually, it decided the custodian “consistently challenged” her supervisor’s authority and refused to follow instructions on several occasions, which created “an intolerable working environment.” The university terminated her employment on Oct. 8, 2009.
You Make the Call
Did the university have just cause to dismiss the employee?
OR
Was dismissal too much for the employee’s misconduct?
IF YOU SAID dismissal was too much, you’re right. The arbitrator found the custodian attempted to undermine her supervisor’s authority. Her failure to lock the law school building doors when all indications were she was supposed to didn’t make sense other than to make her supervisor look bad, said the arbitrator. This was serious misconduct that could justify dismissal if the custodian had a record of previous discipline for a disrespectful attitude.
The arbitrator found the light bulb incident was minor, but it still demonstrated an attempt to make the supervisor look bad. The two incidents were enough to warrant serious discipline, but since there was no previous discipline, the university was obligated to try corrective discipline before dismissal.
