Suncor worker fired after calling in sick during wildfires

Many employers have disability management programs and established procedures for calling in sick that employees must follow. However, before an employee is disciplined for not following those procedures or abusing sick leave, the employer should look at how it handled the situation with the information it had.

A Suncor oilsands worker who called in sick amongst the confusion of the Fort McMurray, Alta., wildfires did not act dishonestly or abuse the company’s sick leave program, an arbitrator has ruled.

Oil company Suncor operates an oil sands extraction and production site called Firebag in the Wood Buffalo region of Alberta. K.Z. was a field operator and production technician there, working in steam production, water production, sulphur recovery, and in the water process plant. Hired in 2008, K.Z. lived in Hudson Bay, Sask. — about 700 kilometres from the Firebag site — with his family. He flew to and from the Firebag camp, where he stayed for several days at a time to work, and had no disciplinary record.

Suncor had an integrated disability management (IDM) program that established absence and notification procedures for employees who were too sick to come to work — if they were off work for medical reasons, they had to be examined by a licensed physician while experiencing symptoms. Employees were also required to notify their supervisor if they had a health problem that could affect their fitness for work.

The procedure for calling in sick, which had been updated and sent to employees on April 8, 2016, required an employee to call the shift supervisor onsite before 8:30 a.m., call the “shift C supervisor” — who kept track of absences and staffing — and call the sick line for direction on what is needed.

On May 1, 2016, a wildfire started near Fort McMurray, Alta, which is about 120 kilometres from Suncor’s Firebag site. The wildfires spread, causing most of the city to be evacuated. The fires didn’t reach the Firebag site, but came within 30 kilometres so its operations were put into “safe” mode — reduced production and staff. Employees who weren’t deemed necessary to keep things going were sent home until they were needed again, so it would be easier to evacuate Firebag if necessary.

K.Z. was sent home on May 7, which was two days earlier than the regular end of his shift. However, his plane sat on the runway for two hours due to the smoke in the air, but it soon improved enough for the plane to take off. The day before, Suncor had issued an air quality advisory and provided paper masks for employees, but by May 7 the air quality improved so masks were no longer provided.

A week later, on the evening of May 15, the operations supervisor left a message on his home phone saying he was needed at work the next day for a one-week shift because he had experience starting up and shutting down the plants. K.Z. called back a little while later and said he had things to do in the morning, the notice was too short, and wouldn’t be able to catch a 9 a.m. flight — normally Suncor arranged flight bookings but in this case it hadn’t. He hadn’t received any calls on his cellphone and it turned out the supervisor had a wrong number for it.

Worker called in absence

The next morning, K.Z. texted his shift supervisor — who was the shift C supervisor — to say he had called in sick that morning and wouldn’t be making it in, and also called the onsite supervisor. The shift C supervisor didn’t tell him to call the IDM representative or sick line because he already had the information, though K.Z. did call the sick line. Three days later K.Z. texted again to say he had dental x-rays done on an infected wisdom tooth and he might be having surgery in August or September.

Suncor’s third-party absence reporting system operator, Morneau Shepell, emailed the shift supervisor a report of K.Z.'s absence indicating the reason was “fire — town evacuated” and in the spot indicating if the employee was capable of performing work, it said “n/a” instead of “no.”

The week of May 23 to 29 was a scheduled off-week for K.Z., so he returned to work on May 30. The on-duty shift supervisor asked him why he hadn’t called the IDM representative while absent, and K.Z. replied that he thought the process had changed because of the wildfires. The supervisor advised him to contact the IDM representative because he had been absent for more than 40 hours, so K.Z. did so.

K.Z. told the IDM representative that he had not sought medical treatment or assessment during his absence from May 16 to 23. However, he applied for short-term disability (STD) benefits and told an STD adjudicator a few days later that he had been exposed to smoke from the wildfires before evacuation that had caused symptoms, but he didn’t seek medical help. The adjudicator determined that because he didn’t seek medical treatment or assessment during his absence, the absence couldn’t be supported under the IDM program.

Suncor called an investigation meeting to discuss K.Z.'s absence from May 16 to 23. K.Z. explained that on May 16 he “wasn’t feeling great” because of smoke symptoms. He said he may have mentioned he had been evacuated on May 7 to the sick line agent, which could be why the reason for his absence was reported as “fire — town evacuated.” At the time, the call-in agent had asked K.Z. if he was calling in sick for that day or his whole cycle, and K.Z. had responded “I don’t know yet, probably for part of the cycle anyway.” However, the only absence report was for that day, May 16.

Confusion over health issues

K.Z. was suspended with pay while Suncor investigated his absence. He provided a physician’s assessment form completed by his dentist regarding his wisdom tooth but with no details on medication. He told a Suncor health advisor that his medical issues were not work-related, the medications prescribed by his dentist were “an anti-inflammatory and an antibiotic” and he didn’t feel he could have worked in any capacity from May 16 to 23. However, he had not sought medical help during his absence for the smoke symptoms he had previously mentioned.

It was decided that K.Z.'s absence wasn’t medically supported and his application for short-term disability benefits was denied. Suncor’s investigation into K.Z.'s absence determined that the discrepancy between his initial call-in and his STD application — and going back and forth between smoke inhalation symptoms and his dental issues — indicated dishonesty and an abuse of sick leave under the IDM program.  It also found that his report of his dental issues was an attempt to make his health situation more serious — he didn’t tell his supervisor the nature of his x-rays and that they had been done a week earlier, and his dentist appointment during his absence was a pre-scheduled one. In addition, Suncor would have been able to accommodate his use of prescription drugs if he had supplied information about them. The company terminated K.Z.'s employment for “an irreparable breach of the essential trust” on July 20.

The arbitrator found that on May 16, K.Z. believed he was calling in on the sick line and said as much in his text to the shift C supervisor. He may not have specifically said he was calling in sick but because it was the sick line, it wasn’t necessary. The agent on the line didn’t ask him for the reason for his absence, because once he mentioned the wildfire, the agent followed the new reporting for absences due to the fires. This led to the absence report indicating the fire as the reason for K.Z. absence, said the arbitrator.

The arbitrator noted that none of the supervisors or management followed up with K.Z. during his absence from May 16 to 23 and there was no further request for him to come into work after his initial call-in — which didn’t make sense if he was considered absent without a reason. There was no evidence K.Z. was trying to convince Suncor that he was too sick to return to work that week. Instead, the reasonable conclusion from the lack of follow-up was that Suncor didn’t expect him to return that week and the sick line agent gave him the impression his sick leave request would be for more than one day, said the arbitrator.

The arbitrator determined that K.Z. didn’t abuse the IDM program and properly followed procedure for calling in on May 16. The arbitrator also found that he didn’t fraudulently apply for STD benefits — he felt unwell on May 16 and wasn’t lying about his dental issues and medication. He didn’t provide enough information to be approved for benefits, but it wasn’t a false application, said the arbitrator.

The arbitrator found no grounds for disciplining K.Z. and ordered Suncor to reinstate him to his position with compensation for lost pay.

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