Body not necessary part of funeral: Arbitrator
An employer granted one day of bereavement time off after a worker requested three days’ leave to mourn his sister.
Osmane Halane worked at Enterprise Rent-A-Car Canada in B.C. and after he found out late on April 17, 2016, that his sister died in Somalia on April 16, he requested three days off. The collective agreement allowed for workers to take three days to “make arrangement for and attend the funeral.”
However, the station manager denied the time off because Halane would not be travelling to Somalia for the funeral. Instead, he wanted to remain home in Canada and invite family and friends to his house for a three-day period of mourning.
An observance was held at Halane’s place of worship on April 18, and about 150 people attended that place as well as his home on April 19 and 20. When the employer asked why he requested so much time off, despite not actually attending the burial, Halane emailed a response: “In my religion/culture, we have three to seven days in which relatives and close members of the community read the Qur’an, have prayers and prepare for the funeral.”
The union, Professional Employees’ Union, Local 378, grieved the denial, when Halane was told to substitute two banked sick days in lieu of the bereavement time.
The employer responded on June 9, 2016, by email: “We did understand that time may be needed to grieve or hold a memorial service locally, therefore, per article 29.04, which does not say the employer must grant three days, we paid Halane for 1 day.”
The company’s human resources generalist testified that the company had restricted employees to one day of bereavement leave in the past, when employees would not be attending funerals. The company also said it wasn’t made aware until late in the process that three days would be required for a such religious observances regarding the death.
But the union said the agreement didn’t say the employer had to attend the place where the body was to be buried, only that a worker was entitled to time off to attend any kind of observance in relation to the death.
The union asked for $1,500 in extra damages for Halane due to undue stress and the cost of obtaining a death certificate.
Arbitrator Ken Saunders upheld the grievance and ordered the company to restore the two days into Halane’s banked time account.
“I declare that the employer denied Halane’s claim in violation of article 29.04 of the collective agreement," said Saunders
Because Halane attended observances to mark his sister’s death, it was enough to trigger a successful bereavement claim, said Saunders. “First, a funeral may consist of one or more observances — it is not necessarily confined to one day of observances. Second, the presence of the body of the deceased is not a necessary element of a funeral. Third, the qualification that observances usually precede burial indicates that they need not precede burial in every case.”
But Halane’s claim for a human rights violation was denied. “The evidence does not show that being forced to draw on two days of banked time caused Halane a direct financial or personal hardship. What is clear is Halane harboured the belief that his claim was denied because of reasons that simply did not exist — beliefs that he never directly addressed with the employer at the material times.”
Reference: Enterprise Rent-A-Car Canada and the Canadian Office and Professional Employees’ Union, Local 378. Ken Saunders — arbitrator. David Penner for the employer. Cathy Hirani for the employee. Jan. 26, 2017.
