Driver had arrangement for alternate Fridays off for child care
This instalment of You Make the Call involves a truck driver who was fired for missing a scheduled shift.
David Skinner worked for LMB Transport, a freight hauling company in Belleville, Ont. Hired on Jan. 3, 2011, he drove a regular truck route Monday to Friday evenings. Every other weekend, he had child care responsibilities, so he had an understanding with LMB that he would have every other Friday night off so he could care for his children.
LMB accommodated this need with an unofficial rule that, because of many requests from drivers, all drivers must remind dispatch a few days in advance of any regular absences, even if planned ahead of time.
This ensured dispatch would be on top of any driver absences and no truck shipments would fall behind schedule.
Twice in his first month on the job, Skinner was reprimanded for driving misconduct — the first time for backing into a trailer while making a delivery and the second time for being out of service with broken springs on his tractor trailer. LMB saw the latter incident as evidence of a poor pre-trip inspection and, since it was his second reprimand in a short time, the company suspended Skinner for three days without pay.
In April 2011, Skinner was involved in an at-fault accident, for which he received another reprimand. Other reprimands followed — in June for not making required corrections in his logs, in February 2012 for hitting a gate and sustaining minor damage to his truck that cost LMB some money to repair, and in March 2012 for exceeding the hours of service regulations.
On Friday, March 16, 2012, LMB dispatch was expecting Skinner to report to work because he had been off the previous Friday. However, he didn’t show up and he didn’t call in. LMB dispatch had to scramble to find someone to cover Skinner’s run and, by the time an alternate driver was found, the run was going to be late. This hurt LMB’s business and reputation as it was scored on a time basis by the customer.
Another driver was put on this run until Skinner met with the company’s safety and compliance officer. Skinner explained that March 16 was his regular Friday off when he had child care responsibilities — his previous child-care Friday was March 2 — and he had only been off the previous Friday because he had exceeded his permitted driving hours for the week and had spent three hours on the Thursday evening getting the brakes repaired on his truck.
However, LMB insisted it was Skinner’s responsibility to keep dispatch advised of his schedule as things were too busy for it to keep track of such details — hence the unofficial rule of notification of absences.
LMB’s safety and compliance officer reviewed the missed shift and Skinner’s other reprimands and decided to terminate Skinner’s employment.
You Make the Call
Did LMB Transport have just cause to terminate Skinner’s employment?
OR
Was the missed shift not Skinner’s fault due to the child care accommodation arrangements previously established?
If you said LMB Transport had just cause to terminate Skinner’s employment, you’re right. Though Skinner had made arrangements to take every other Friday off to meet his child care responsibilities, the adjudicator noted there was still an unofficial rule for all drivers to remind dispatch a few days in advance of days off, even if it was a regularly scheduled day off — such as Skinner’s alternate Fridays. The adjudicator also pointed out Skinner didn’t deny the existence of such a rule and, since it had been instituted as regular practice, should have known he needed to follow it.
The adjudicator found Skinner’s failure to follow that rule resulted in LMB facing difficulty in finding a replacement and damage to its reputation with a customer due to the resulting lateness in the truck run on the evening of March 16, 2012. This misconduct, combined with the number of other “infractions and warnings” Skinner received in a fairly short time employed with the company — less than one-and-one-half years — led the adjudicator to determine LMB had just cause to terminate Skinner’s employment. Skinner’s unjust dismissal complaint was dismissed by the adjudicator and the dismissal was upheld.
“Mr. Skinner was hired as a truck driver in January 2011 and dismissed in March 2012. In that approximately 15-month period, he had two at fault accidents for which he received a reprimand and a two-day suspension and a warning that further infractions could lead to further discipline up to and including dismissal,” said the adjudicator. “Given the relatively short duration of Mr. Skinner’s employment and given the considerable number of infractions and warnings, I have concluded that LMB Transport Inc. had cause to dismiss Mr. Skinner.”
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