Rural mail carrier wore sandals to work, contrary to footwear policy
This instalment of You Make the Call features a postal worker who was sent home for violating his employer’s policy on safe footwear.
Viachaslau Harelik was a rural and suburban mail carrier (RSMC) for Canada Post in its Surrey, B.C., facility. As part of his offer of employment, Harelik was given a reference manual that included the directive, “always wear the appropriate, properly fitted footwear with good grip-type sole.” This directive referred to other guidelines that outlined work areas where protective footwear must be worn and stipulated that employees in postal plants should “never wear any sandals or other shoes that have open toes, open heels or high heels,” though Harelik didn’t have copies of these guidelines.
In June 2008, Canada Post sent a newsletter out to mail carriers that addressed the guidelines on proper footwear and reiterated the prohibition of open toed shoes. However, this was two months before Harelik was hired.
Harelik usually arrived at work at 5:30 a.m. to start sorting the mail for his route. He started at such an early hour so he could finish his shift in time to pick up his daughter after kindergarten and go to English language classes.
In June 2009, the area was experiencing a heat wave. Management saw some letter carriers were wearing inappropriate footwear, so they were reminded at a weekly floor meeting about proper footwear. Employees were told sandals weren’t allowed.
However, Harelik didn’t recall being at the meeting and he wore sandals to work each day for about two weeks. On June 9, his supervisor saw him wearing a t-shirt, shorts and sandals at work. The supervisor told Harelik to change his footwear immediately, but Harelik didn’t have any other shoes with him and said he was unaware of the rule.
The supervisor told Harelik to go home and change his shoes, but Harelik said it would take too much time. If he drove home and came back, he wouldn’t be able to finish his route in time to pick up his daughter. The supervisor said it was his choice, but he should leave. Harelik left and other mail carriers covered Harelik’s route.
Harelik reviewed his employee manual and could only find the rule indicating properly fitted footwear with a gripping sole should be worn, but nothing about open toed shoes. He then checked Canada Post’s online materials and found guidelines on footwear for mail delivery but not for working within a postal facility.
Harelik wasn’t disciplined after the incident but he didn’t receive any pay for the day he was sent home. Two days later, his weekly floor meeting covered appropriate footwear in the workplace.
You Make the Call
Should Harelik have been sent home without pay after refusing to change his footwear?
OR
Was Canada Post too harsh in applying its safe footwear policy?
If you said Canada Post was too harsh, you’re right. The arbitrator found Canada Post correctly disseminated its footwear rules with its letter carriers and waited until they all knew about it before implementing discipline, but Harelik and other RSMC’s weren’t included. As a result, Harelik wasn’t familiar with the ban on sandals.
The arbitrator found Harelik tried to communicate his lack of awareness of the footwear rule on June 9, 2009, but his supervisor refused to give, despite the fact letter carriers were allowed to finish their work on the day of their floor meeting. The arbitrator also found the supervisor didn’t give Harelik any direction or reason for the rule and simply told him to change.
“Despite the best efforts of Canada Post, the rule was not brought to the attention of this relatively new RSMC employee and he was not informed of the consequences of a failure to adhere to the rule,” said the arbitrator. “The unwavering enforcement of the rule with its consequent loss of a day’s pay without prior warning to him was not reasonable in all of the circumstances.”
