Canadian Labour Reporter

at home and one week onsite. The plan noted that childcare centres and home care providers in On- tario were re-opening and sum- mer day camp programs would be operating during the summer. Employees without childcare op- tions were given the options of taking vacation leave or unpaid leave. The date for the staggered re- turn was delayed due to changing health directives, ultimately set- tling on Aug. 26. A customer service agent, Ser- ena Jacak, had a two-year-old daughter. When the return-to- office plan was announced, she notified her supervisor that her daughter's daycare wasn't re- opening until October. Her supervisor told her that Hydro Ottawa wasn't making exceptions and she was expected to make alter- native arrangements or use vacation time. Jacak used 10 vacation days from early August to mid-September to care for her daughter. Another customer service agent, Elonia Aguilar, had three daughters aged 15, 12, and 6. On July 31, she emailed her super- visor requesting to work from home on two days in the weeks when she was scheduled to be on- site, as her daughters took gym- nastics classes to which she and her husband had to take turns driving. Her request was turned down and she used eight vacation days in August and September. Jennifer Robinson, an acting senior service desk agent, told her supervisor that her 10-year-old daughter's daycare had no firm re- opening date. The supervisor sug- gested she seek help from family, neighbours or other daycare cen- tres. However, she didn't know her neighbours and had no other options. Hydro Ottawa advised that she could take vacation leave to stay home. Tanya Guignion was a service desk agent with an eight-year-old daughter. Guignion told Hydro Ottawa that daycares and sum- mer camps were closed, so she had no childcare options as they had no family in the area. She re- quested to work from home until schools opened but she was de- nied. She used eight vacation days in August and September. Ontario went back into lock- down on Oct. 9 with Hydro Ot- tawa employees working fully from home for four weeks. The alternating schedule resumed on Nov. 23 and Jacak and Aguilar were able to make childcare ar- rangements, although Aguilar borrowed 19 hours of advance vacation leave. Robinson and Guignion continued to ask for flexibility. The union filed a grievance, claiming that Hydro Ottawa's return-to-work plan didn't ade- quately consider exceptions relat- ing to childcare needs. The arbitrator noted that all four employees were female par- ents with childcare responsi- bilities, which put them in a "dis- advantaged group" and Hydro Ottawa didn't consider the diffi- cult circumstances created by the pandemic. Management's sug- gestions were "unhelpful and un- reasonable" during a time when health guidelines were changing and people were being encour- aged to stay in bubbles. "In announcing on June 17, 2020, that the employer would not consider any childcare ac- commodations beyond leave without pay or use of vacation pay, the employer effectively an- nounced a decision to discrimi- nate against employees without childcare," said the arbitrator. In addition, Hydro Ottawa pro- vided no evidence that its plan was an occupational requirement that justified discrimination. Normally, employees with child- care needs had an obligation to seek out alternate plans but pan- demic reasonable childcare al- ternatives weren't available in the pandemic, the arbitrator said. Hydro Ottawa was ordered to credit the four employees with the vacation leave they used to care for their children in August and September 2020. Reference: Hydro Ottawa and IBEW, Local 636. Judith Allen — arbitrator. Kecia Podetz for employer. James Shields, Sogol Naserian for employee. March 20, 2021 Power equipment but was unme- tered. The customer who lived on the property acknowledged that she had purchased the streetlight but didn't say from whom she had bought it or who had installed it. On Oct. 3, the worker texted the supervisor of customer ser- vice to say that the customer wasn't involved. The next day, the worker informed the supervisor that he had installed and con- nected the light to the electrical grid. He said that the previous June, he had installed a scrapped mercury vapour light he had at home as a favour to his father, who had a camper in the area. He also said there was an under- standing that employees could take a scrapped light for personal use and he hadn't charged anyone for the light fixture or the energy. He added that he had acted alone on his own time and hadn't used company equipment. A short time later, the worker contacted the internal audit man- ager and said that sometime later he had replaced the old light with a high-pressure sodium streetlight that had been on the service truck, as the old light had stopped work- ing. This was done on company time with company equipment and a service crew. On Nov. 6, the company in- formed the worker that installing the light without hooking it up to a customer meter was a breach of the code of conduct and was also a criminal act. In addition, when he replaced the light with a new one, it was theft of company property, time and resources. Newfound- land Power terminated the work- er's employment. The union grieved the termina- tion, arguing that Newfoundland Power did not have just cause for dismissal. Before the arbitration hearing, the worker disclosed that he hadn't been by himself when he had installed the streetlight — he had a PLT with him and he used company equipment on company time. The arbitrator found that the worker's installation of the light without a meter resulted in the theft of electricity from the com- pany for four months before it was discovered. He also initially lied about using company time and equipment to do it, and then used both a second time to re- place the light with one that was company property. The arbitrator also found that although the worker didn't directly benefit from the installation and the unmetered electricity, he knew that his father would. The worker's misconduct "was a serious breach of the company's code of conduct and business eth- ics policy," said the arbitrator. The worker's role as a lead-hand work- ing in the field without supervi- sion created a high standard for conduct and trust, so the worker's actions struck at the heart of the employment relationship. Although the worker had 11 years of service without prior discipline, the seriousness of the misconduct outweighed any miti- gating factors, the arbitrator said in dismissing the grievance and upholding the dismissal. Reference: IBEW, Local 1620 and Newfoundland Power. James Oakley — arbitrator. Denis Mahoney for employer. Peter Routliff for employee. Nov. 17, 2020. 2020 CarswellNfld 390 (N.L. Arb.). Technician installed unmetered streetlight to benefit father Hydro Ottawa's plan didn't consider difficulties of childcare < eft pg. 1 < Discriminates pg. 1 7 CANADIAN LABOUR REPORTER CANADIAN LABOUR REPORTER COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS Canadian HR Reporter, a Key Media Canada (HR) Ltd. business 2021

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