Worker’s intimidation of woman while in company van on duty and attempts to cover it up were just cause for dismissal
Employees who perform their job duties outside of the workplace usually have a high standard for conduct and employers must be able to trust them. Because they work outside of company property and often with little supervision, these employees have to be trusted to do their jobs on their own. There are ways to monitor employees through various technological means, but ultimately employers have to trust that the employees are being as productive as possible.
When employees outside the workplace are wearing company uniforms or driving company vehicles with logos, there’s an even greater responsibility on them to conduct themselves professionally. An employee misbehaving in public while sporting company logos can mean bad publicity and potentially lose customers. If an employee breaches the trust he has with the employer and threatens the employer’s public image, then it could be grounds for dismissal –especially if police are involved and the employee lies about it.
A British Columbia arbitrator has upheld the termination of an employee who was dishonest about his actions in harassing his wife’s boss while on company time.
Fortis Energy is a natural gas distributor in British Columbia. The employee was a customer service technician for the company in Vernon, B.C., hired in October 1987. His job involved servicing customers at their locations by travelling with his tools and equipment in a service van. He worked on his own, keeping his van at home during off hours and communicating with Fortis via cellphone, two-way radio and a pager. The van had a computer that allowed a dispatcher to schedule work and input location and work progress, which was used in customer billing. The company also was able to keep track of the van’s location through an automated vehicle location system.
On May 22, 2014, the employee was working when he received a text message from his wife saying she was being called into a meeting with her boss. Soon after, she texted him again saying she was suspended for insulting a co-worker. After a few more exchanges, she texted to him “whatever you do, don’t kill the bitch. That’s the union’s job.” The employee responded “no garrontee (sic).”
During his lunch that day, the employee called the Fortis employee assistance program (EAP) to make an appointment because he was feeling stressed.
Worker followed wife’s boss
The employee completed several assignments over the course of the day and also went home for a short period of time without informing Fortis. Later that afternoon, he recorded an overtime lunch of 30 minutes on his electronic timesheet. On his way to a customer in the mid-afternoon, he drove by the hospital where his wife worked and saw her boss’ car in the parking lot. About a half-hour later, he returned to the hospital and parked in the parking lot for 22 minutes. When his wife’s boss came out, she saw the Fortis van and thought it was blocking her path. She recognized the driver as the husband of the worker she had suspended and felt nervous. As she drove away, she confirmed he was following her and reported the licence plate number. The employee noticed she was on her cellphone, pointed at his eyes and then at her while mouthing the words, “I’m watching you.” Shortly after, the employee pulled away and drove home.
Shortly after the employee arrived at home — where his wife was with two friends — a police officer came to the door. The officer warned the employee that if he continued his behavour towards his wife’s boss, he could be charged with criminal harassment.
The next morning, the employee came to the manager’s office upset and saying he had done something “stupid.” He said he had followed a car with his wife and another man with his Fortis van — no mention was made of his wife’s boss, or that the police visited him, as he later testified he didn’t think anything would come of it and his employer wouldn’t find out. He said it was to protect his wife and the manager chalked it up to a personal problem, didn’t inquire any further, and sent the employee home on compassionate leave, where the employee remained until a few days later. The employee later called and said he would be able to come back on May 28.
The boss of the employee’s wife called a Fortis customer service representative five days later — May 27 — to register a complaint. She then spoke to the employee’s manager and informed him of what had happened. The manager was shocked and obtained a written account for the HR advisor.
An investigative meeting was arranged for the next day when the employee was back at work. The manager asked the employee to relate everything that happened. The employee did so and apologized he had not told him everything before, but he had been upset. He also said he had seen a psychiatrist and understood what he had done was inappropriate, it was on company time, and in a company vehicle. However, he said his wife was being “tortured” by her boss and he felt he had to protect her.
The employee was suspended with pay pending an investigation and turned in his keys, gate card, pager and cellphone. The investigation revealed the extent of his actions and the fact he failed to disclose them to the manager initially, he had claimed overtime when he was on lunch — which would have been billed to a customer — his time sheets didn’t match with the actual work he did that day, and he spent time at home on May 22 when he should have been working.
Fortis was also able to recover text messages on the employee’s work cellphone that he had deleted, including the “no garrontee” message. This was considered a threat to the boss of the employee’s wife and the employee had deleted it to cover it up.
Another investigative meeting was held on June 4 with the HR advisor, manager, the regional manager, the employee and a union representative. At the meeting, the employee said he didn’t know when he went to the hospital, he didn’t go home for lunch that day — then said he didn’t remember when confronted with the vehicle location data that indicated he did —and he screwed up the overtime claim. He also said he didn’t know what he meant by his “no garrontee” text message because
he was “lost in his emotions.” He claimed he had written a letter of apology to be sent to his wife’s boss — which Fortis obtained the next day.
On June 11, the employee was terminated for his misconduct for following and threatening his wife’s boss, as well as dishonesty in his work hours that day and not disclosing what he did. Since customer service technicians were relied upon to work with limited supervision and had to be trustworthy, Fortis determined the employment relationship could not be saved.
The arbitrator found there was no disputing the employee went home at midday on May 22 and later recorded a false overtime lunch claim. It was also clear he had sent the text message saying “no garrontee” in response to his wife’s text to not kill her boss.
The vehicle’s tracking system also made it clear the van sat in the hospital parking lot for 22 minutes at which point the employee “stepped outside the course of his employment while purporting to be on standby” and “the plan was set in motion.”
The arbitrator also found the evidence showed the employee followed his wife’s boss and intimidated her, leading to a warning from police and opening up the possibility that he could have been charged with criminal harassment. The employee’s failure to reveal the true facts of the incident to his manager the next day was a conscious withholding of information that affected how Fortis handled the situation — it was unlikely the manager would have sent the employee home on sick leave if he knew the true nature of the employee's actions, said the arbitrator.
The arbitrator agreed with Fortis that the employee was dishonest in reporting the incident and continued to withhold information when he didn’t mention deleting the texts from his company cellphone, which he had done to protect his wife from her employer’s investigation. His responses that he couldn’t remember going home or doing other things were “fallacious,” the arbitrator said.
In addition, the apology letter the employee wrote to his wife’s boss was written at the suggestion of a counsellor to protect his wife, not out of remorse, said the arbitrator.
Ultimately, despite the employee’s long and relatively clean service record, the arbitrator found his misconduct was serious enough to warrant dismissal. The employee’s behaviour while on duty and the ensuing dishonesty harmed “the legitimate interests” of Fortis that required a high level of trust to do his job.
“His grave misconduct in the stalking, threatening and deliberate intimidation of (his wife’s boss) on company time and in a company vehicle was a betrayal of (Fortis’) trust,” said the arbitrator. “He was deceitful, displayed a lack of concern for the truth and he removed relevant evidence from his company cellphone.”
The grievance was dismissed and the dismissal upheld.
For more information see:
- Fortis Energy Inc. and IBEW, Local 213, Re
