Productivity standards for picking and loading set at 95 percent
A warehouse worker with more than three decades on the job who lost his position for repeatedly missing productivity targets has been reinstated by a British Columbia arbitrator.
In a decision dated April 30, 2026, arbitrator Cathy Knapp reinstated the longtime warehouseman at Martin Brower of Canada Co.'s Delta, B.C. distribution centre.
She also reduced his dismissal to a two-day suspension after the Teamsters Local Union No. 31 had grieved the termination.
Productivity standards introduced
The Delta warehouse supplies McDonald's Canada, its sole client. Years earlier, the company introduced engineered productivity standards for picking and loading, set at 95 percent and measured monthly. The warehouseman, who has Raynaud's disease, bid almost exclusively on dry goods, the warmest of the warehouse's three zones.
Beginning in May 2024, the company started consistently holding workers to the standards. The warehouseman met them in only two of the next nine months. After a string of escalating warnings and suspensions, he was terminated on Feb. 10, 2025, after more than 31 years of service.
The case turned on a legal distinction. Poor performance can be treated as culpable misconduct, judged under the Wm. Scott test, or as non-culpable incapacity, judged under the stricter Edith Cavell criteria. Knapp found the warehouseman was capable of meeting the standards, so the failures were culpable and the company's progressive discipline route was the appropriate one.
Disciplinary letters
Even so, Knapp ruled the company could not later recast the case as one of incapacity after running it through its disciplinary article, and noted that none of the six disciplinary letters warned the warehouseman that missing the standard could cost him his job.
Knapp also examined how the discipline was applied. The collective agreement let the company skip or repeat steps depending on the circumstances, but managers testified they moved everyone up the ladder the same way in the name of consistency, without weighing the warehouseman’s two good months or his seniority.
Knapp wrote that the company's "pro forma approach to applying discipline for failure to meet standards is flawed." She also faulted the company for offering training only after each disciplinary meeting, and for treating a sarcastic remark by the warehouseman as a refusal of training that he never actually made.
Accommodation before dismissal
The medical side drew attention too. Knapp found the company knew the warehouseman avoided cold zones because of his condition but never held the in-depth joint discussion with the union needed to explore accommodation before ending his employment. She also noted he rejected an offer of heated gloves and took little part in problem-solving, which she called unacceptable.
Weighing it all, Knapp held the firing was an excessive response, mainly because the company kept escalating discipline after the warehouseman had twice met the standards. She reduced the termination to a two-day suspension and ordered him reinstated and made whole.
The award gave him a three-month ramp-up period before strict accountability resumes, full retraining including on the warehouse kiosk he struggled to use, and a return-to-work meeting to set expectations and discuss accommodation. Knapp added a caution: "Long service, however, is not a free pass."
