Operator rescinded previous decision to quit: Arbitrator
A British Columbia arbitrator has found that a worker who declared that he quit and wrote out a letter of resignation did not show an objective intention to resign from his employment.
Ken Santano was a senior equipment operator in road maintenance for Yellowhead Road and Bridge (YRB), a road and bridge maintenance company in Kootenay, B.C., and was an employee of the company for 30 years.
On June 4, 2019, Santano was operating a backhoe as part of a road work project. While digging a hole, Santano struck an underground gas line. There was a high-pressure gas explosion that threw another worker to the ground. The road had to be closed while the damage was fixed.
The next day, Santano was feeling emotional and felt responsible for the incident, though YRB wasn’t placing any blame. YRB asked him to complete an operator’s report about the incident, which further upset him as he was afraid he would be disciplined. He declared loudly that he was going to quit his job.
Santano then went to the lunchroom and wrote a letter of resignation providing two weeks’ notice and left it on a table. He spoke to a couple of coworkers who convinced him to think about it some more before deciding if he was going to quit.
The supervisor witnessed the outburst and went looking for him. He found the resignation letter in the lunchroom and sent it to YRB’s general manager, saying that it had been “given” by Santano.
The supervisor then tracked down Santano and called him into his office, saying Santano should think about it overnight and let him know in the morning if he changed his mind. However, Santano said he had already decided he was quitting.
After the meeting, Santano encountered one of the coworkers who had tried to convince him to think about it and told him the matter was “taken care of” — which the coworker believed meant he wasn’t quitting.
That evening, the general manager contacted Santano’s supervisor to say he accepted Santano’s resignation.
The following day, June 6, Santano reported to work as usual but didn’t speak to his supervisor. He was off the next day, but a union shop steward contacted him to find out what had happened. Santano said he had told the supervisor he didn’t want to resign, so the steward advised him to retrieve the resignation letter and destroy it.
Santano’s next day of work was June 10. He spoke to his supervisor and said, “Just so we are clear, I’m not quitting and I didn’t quit that day.” The supervisor was surprised and told Santano it was “out of his hands.”
Two days later, Santano went to see the general manager to tell him didn’t want to resign. The general manager said he thought “it was a done deal” but would talk to the company president.
However, YRB didn’t rescind the resignation and the union filed a grievance.
The arbitrator found that Santano didn’t have “a true and continuing intention to quit.” Santano wrote a letter of resignation — which was “generally sufficient” to show an objective intention to quit — but he didn’t actually give it to YRB.
The arbitrator noted that after Santano wrote the letter and met with his supervisor, his coworkers believed he didn’t intend to quit and was giving it some thought — an indication of Santano’s state of mind.
This was reinforced by Santano’s statement to his supervisor that he didn’t want to quit a few days later and to the general manager two days after that.
The arbitrator determined that Santano did not intend to quit on the day he wrote the letter and didn’t have a “continuing intention” to quit in the days that followed.
Reference: Yellowhead Road and Bridge (Kootenay) and BCGEU. Wayne Moore — arbitrator. Clayton Jones for employer. Mike Fenton for union. April 15, 2020. 2020 CarswellBC 1170
