Technician’s comments taken out of context: Union
A British Columbia arbitrator has upheld the termination of a worker who made comments that could be construed as threatening.
The worker was a powerline technician (PLT) for the City of Westminster, B.C.’s electrical utility. He was hired in April 2019 and worked with a crew of other PLTs in a safety-sensitive environment. However, tensions soon developed with his fellow crew members.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the city instituted procedures involving distancing and masks while working. However, PLTs couldn’t wear masks when performing work that required safety googles, as the masks fogged up the goggles.
The employee felt the city and his coworkers weren’t doing enough to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but he couldn’t point to any specific safety violations. He displayed verbal aggression and a lack of interpersonal skills on the job and the city suspended him for three days on July 28 for insubordination, harassment and failing to cooperate with the city’s investigation.
A member of the worker’s crew emailed the city saying the discipline wasn’t enough, as he felt the technician represented a safety issue for the crew by contributing to low morale and mental health issues.
On Aug. 31, a union shop steward encountered the worker in the city offices filling out a leave form. The steward made a joke about looking for time off already because it was Monday morning, to which the worker replied, “When I have my mind made up I follow through.” The two went up to the employee changeroom, where they continued to talk. During the conversation, the technician repeated his remark about following through and made other comments about “burning the city down,” and “it’s like throwing a grenade into a room.”
The steward felt uncomfortable about the comments, so he warned the worker about his language and tried to steer the conversation towards another topic. Another employee was in the shower area and overheard. This employee was concerned about what the worker was saying so he recorded the conversation on his cellphone. The steward didn’t report the conversation to management but the employee who recorded it did.
The employee initially claimed he didn’t remember making any of the comments, except for the grenade one, although he said some of them sounded like something he would say. He explained that the grenade comment was an analogy to the fact that he felt threatened at work and he needed to defend himself.
Management felt the worker’s explanation didn’t make sense, as the conversation had not been about a workplace problem. The city concluded that the technician made the statements, which were threatening in nature and showed “an animus toward your employer and potentially your coworkers that completely and utterly undermines the trust necessary for a viable employment relationship.” The city terminated the worker’s employment effective Sept. 17.
The union argued that the city didn’t have just cause for termination as the comments weren’t threats and were intended as “a private discussion about workplace issues,” noting that the steward didn’t feel threatened by the comments in their context.
The union also argued that the termination was in part due to the worker’s conduct before his suspension, for which he had already been disciplined.
The arbitrator found that the worker didn’t provide an adequate explanation for his comments, so the city was “entitled to protect itself against all possible risks contained within the language” the worker used, including “injury, death or damage or destruction to property.”
The arbitrator also found that the worker didn’t display any insight into the nature of his comments and his coworkers were impacted by his conduct and had safety concerns about working with him. In addition, the technician wasn’t disciplined twice for his previous misconduct — the city considered his past record for related misconduct in determining that the employment relationship was irreparably damaged, said the arbitrator in upholding the termination.
