Contract authorized deductions for training costs if employees left but didn't specify in-house courses were included
An Alberta employer was not entitled to deduct money from employees’ final paycheques to recoup the costs of training the employees, an arbitrator has ruled.
Marco Roy and Bill Thomson were heavy duty truck technicians for Edmonton-based trucking company First Truck Centre. When the two men were first hired — Roy in 1998 and Thomson in 2002 — First Truck required them to sign forms authorizing the company to deduct “monies owed for training received” if they left the company within one year of receiving the training.
Roy and Thomson claimed they were told the form was meant to cover the cost of an apprenticeship program at a post-secondary institute that was required for them to achieve journeyman status needed for the job. They both completed the program early in their tenure with First Truck. First Truck also offered courses for employees, but neither man was told these courses had a cost and believed they were part of the normal training that was part of the job.
Early in 2011, Roy and Thomson resigned. When they received their final paycheques, they found the company had deducted amounts described as “prorated training costs incurred in the prior 12 months.”
The arbitrator noted that Alberta’s Employment Standards Code allowed deductions from employee paycheques only if allowed by a court or authorized by the employee or collective agreement. However, this was “not designed to settle whether an employee owes their employer money,” said the arbitrator.
The collective agreement allowed for employees to be reimbursed for apprenticeship programs and First Truck was entitled to get that money back if such an employee quit within a year, but it was specific to apprenticeship programs.
The arbitrator found the collective agreement did not make any reference to recovering costs for training other than apprenticeship training. Therefore, First Truck did not have the authority to make the deductions. Roy and Thomson completed their apprenticeship training several years before they quit and there was no authority allowing First Truck to demand repayment of any other training. In addition, First Truck failed to identify what constituted a training cost, as employees were simply paid their regular wage while taking its courses.
“While such training may be of value to employees, it was also a necessary condition of the employer’s business,” said the arbitrator. “The collective agreement in place at the time contained no provision allowing for any such deduction and in fact implies the contrary given that it does make specific provision for the reimbursement of apprenticeship fees.”
