Worker's theft of employee cards, lying about it made employment relationship incompatible
An Alberta employer does not have to pay a fired worker statutory termination pay in lieu of notice because the worker’s dishonesty and theft amounted to just cause for dismissal, the Alberta Labour Relations Board has ruled.
Basics Hair Care is a hair salon in Grande Prairie, Alta. The salon employs hair stylists as its own employees and also has independent contractor hair stylists who rent chairs from the salon.
The worker was an employee hair stylist who started working there in 2014 after graduating from school. For her entire tenure at Basics, she only worked as an employee, not a contractor.
Basics maintained client profile cards containing contact information, colouring codes and brands, allergies, personal hair care products, scalp condition, and hair condition information for each customer. Hair stylists would record or amend information on the client cards as necessary.
Worker took client cards
On May 17, 2019, the worker removed the client cards relating to the customers she served. She told another hair stylist who was working at the time that she was taking the cards so she could reorganize them. The salon’s owner asked the worker to return the cards and the worker reiterated that she was reorganizing them. However, she never returned them to the salon.
Two days later, the worker gave notice to the owner that she was terminating her employment at the salon effective June 10, as she had entered into an agreement with another hair salon to start on that day.
A short time later, the worker was working at Basics and made critical comments about the owner, loud enough for customers and other hair stylists to hear. The comments indicated that she was unhappy with the working atmosphere at the salon. She also told clients that she was moving to the other salon.
On May 28, Basics terminated the worker’s employment for just cause. According to the owner, it took six to nine months to set up the information from the missing client cards.
Employee have an obligation to always be honest with their employer, says a labour and employment lawyer.
Statutory termination pay
The worker submitted an application for termination pay in lieu of notice under the Alberta Employment Standards Code (ESC). An employment standards officer assessed the matter in favour of the worker and issued an order to Basics to pay the worker termination pay of more than $1,700, plus an order of officer fee.
Basics appealed the order to the labour relations board, contending that it had just cause to terminate the worker’s employment, which disentitled the worker to any termination pay.
The board noted that in the hair salon, the ownership of client information varied depending on whether the stylist in question was an employee or an independent contractor. For stylists who were employees, the clients are the employer’s clients, not the individual stylist. As a result, the information recorded about those clients was the salon’s property, said the board.
As a result, when the worker took the cards from the salon, it essentially constituted an act of theft, said the board, adding that when the worker explained that she was removing the cards to reorganize them, she was being dishonest because she didn’t intend to return them.
Employee theft may not necessarily lead to dismissal, but lying about it certainly will.
Just cause
When it comes to just cause, it must be determined whether the employee’s conduct results in their continued employment to be incompatible with the employee’s obligations to the employer. Since the worker’s conduct was dishonest, intentional, and damaging to the salon, it was in fact incompatible with continued employment, said the board.
The board determined that Basics had just cause to terminate the worker’s employment under the ESC and revoked the employment standards officer’s order to pay under the ESC.
Taking product and dishonesty about it justified an employee’s dismissal, a Manitoba court ruled.
