Worker complained about operational changes, didn't accept responsibility
A one-day suspension was appropriate for an Ontario worker who failed to follow standard operating procedure with which he disagreed, an arbitrator has ruled.
The worker was a driver responsible for delivering vaccines for the Ontario Ministry of Health. His job involved driving a refrigerated truck containing the vaccines, which were stored in refrigerated units inside the trucks.
Vaccines were not to be left unrefrigerated for more than 30 minutes, as this was the maximum time allowed to prevent temperature excursions that could affect the viability of the vaccines.
The worker’s manager instituted operational changes when he became manager, with which the worker disagreed because he felt that the changes made it more difficult to load the trucks. Prior to the changes, the vaccines were kept on shelving inside bio-coolers. However, the changes required employees to pre-arrange the vaccines on dollies inside the bio-cooler where the shelves had once been. According to the worker, this didn’t always happen and the drivers had to bring the packages out onto the loading dock to sort them. This left them unrefrigerated for some time, up to an hour and a half, the worker said.
Complaints of misconduct
The manager started receiving complaints from public health units about temperature excursions with the vaccines they were receiving. He also noticed the worker placing vaccines on the loading dock, unrefrigerated, for long periods of time after arriving at work. This practice by the worker was confirmed by other employees, which concerned the manager as he could have provided help with loading or sorting vaccines to keep them refrigerated.
The manager also received emails from public health units that the worker had made comments to them that “my boss is trying to get me fired” and “the data loggers are s---.” Data logs kept track of the temperature of vaccines while they were being transported.
The manager reviewed data from the data loggers that showed three temperature excursions on Oct. 31, 2022, two more on Nov. 14 that were more than the eight-degrees-Celsius maximum set out in the standard operating procedures for transporting “cold chain” vaccines.” Another excursion showed an increased of seven degrees Celsius.
The worker didn’t acknowledge leaving vaccines on the loading dock, but he didn’t deny it and he continued to criticize the operational changes as making the loading process slower. However, he didn’t explain specifically why the new process made it impossible to keep vaccines refrigerated.
Suspension after ‘wastage’ of vaccine product
The ministry suspended the worker for one day for deliberately leaving the vaccines on the loading dock and breaching his oath of office by providing confidential information to the public health units with his comments. The disciplinary letter stated that the worker caused “a total wastage of approximately $216,942 of vaccine product,” although the ministry was still waiting for a decision on how many of the vaccines would have to be destroyed. The letter also referred to the four temperature excursions recorded by the data loggers.
The arbitrator found that it was clear that vaccines being transported rose above the prescribed temperature range on three occasions, as evidenced by the data loggers. Based on the observations of the manager and other ministry employees, this was because the worker allowed the vaccines to sit on the loading dock instead of staying refrigerated, the arbitrator said.
The arbitrator also found that the worker took no accountability for his actions and just criticized the operational changes without trying to find a solution or explain why he couldn’t keep the vaccines refrigerated. If he disagreed with the changes, he should have “obeyed now and grieved later,” said the arbitrator.
The arbitrator agreed that three of the temperature excursions occurred and that was worthy of discipline, although the value of the ruined vaccines hadn’t been established. However, the ministry didn’t establish that the worker breached his oath of office without more concrete evidence of his comments other than hearsay, the arbitrator said.
The arbitrator agreed that a one-day suspension was appropriate discipline and dismissed the grievance. See OPSEU and Ontario (Ministry of Health) (Lucia), Re, 2024 CarswellOnt 10467.
