Canadian Employment Law Today

Canadian HR Reporter, 2021 evident that the deputy chief was stretched thin, so a second deputy fire chief position was cre- ated and Golob was promoted to the role. His responsibilities involved operations including fire suppression and training, while the other deputy chief was responsible for community safety. Deputy fire chief was a non-unionized posi - tion, so Golob signed an employment agree- ment that included a termination clause allow- ing the city to terminate him with or without cause. The agreement also stated that it "super- seded all other agreements, understandings, collateral representations and warranties" con- cerning his employment with the city. In December 2019, the deputy fire chief who was also the director of public safety was pro- moted to fire chief. Another deputy chief was hired and Golob was part of the hiring com- mittee, although the new chief had final say. A friend of his applied for the position, but he was unsuccessful. In May 2020, a firefighter complained to the chief that many officers were unwilling to be mentored by Golob. The firefighter also said that he had overheard Golob in his office loudly complaining to another officer about the lack of competence by a crew during a recent call, during which Golob had called the crew "idi - ots" and used profanity. The chief told Golob that this behaviour was unacceptable and he should apologize to the firefighter who had complained. Golob did so and the matter was considered concluded. A short time later, the vice-president of the union told the chief that some members were unwilling to work with Golob in the mentor - ship program that the department was trying to launch. The program involved each of the captains having either the chief or one of the two deputy chiefs as a mentor in order to instill leadership qualities from the top of the chain of command. Investigation into deputy chief's conduct This led to discussion between the chief and the human resources department about the fire - fighters' willingness to accept Golob as deputy chief and Golob's willingness to accept the new chief. They decided to launch an investigation into Golob's behaviour under the city's code of conduct policy. The investigation interviewed the other dep - uty chief and nine firefighters, but not Golob. It found that there was widespread dissatisfaction with Golob's manner of leading and teaching. All the firefighters interviewed saw Golob as "loud, brusque and often profane" and some called his leadership style "dictatorial." Several described unpleasant encounters with him. The chief determined that Golob didn't have any respect for anyone else in the fire de - partment and "he wants to be chief." The city decided to terminate Golob's employment based on a pattern of insubordinate miscon- duct that breached the employment contract. On June 22, 2020, it terminated his employ- ment with a termination letter that referred to breaches of city polices but didn't describe spe- cific examples. Golob, who hadn't been aware of the investigation, asked for details, but these weren't forthcoming. Two days later, Golob was allowed to return to the fire hall to collect his personal belongings. Golob commenced an action against the city for wrongful dismissal. A short time later, in July, the city downloaded several emails and text messages from Golob's city-issued cellphone. It discovered several text messages between Golob and his friend who had unsuccessfully applied for the deputy fire chief position during the period that the friend has been interviewing for the position, about the internal hiring process. The city considered this communication to be inappropriate, as was the tone — in several messages, Golob insulted the chief with profanity and suggested that the hiring process was unfair. He also suggested that his friend use his seniority to block others who might be considered for promotion. The court found that the city's investigation was flawed, as the focus of the investigation was on Golob's treatment of other employees. As a result, it should have been conducted under the city's discrimination and harassment policy, not the code of conduct policy, which had dif - ferent procedures including allowing Golob to respond to the allegations. However, the problems with the investigation didn't affect whether there was just cause for ter- mination, which requires "employee behaviour that, viewed in all the circumstances, is seri- ously incompatible with the employee's duties, conduct which goes to the root of the contract and fundamentally strikes at the employment relationship," the court said in referring to the standard established in previous jurisprudence. The court found that while Golob wasn't popular with many firefighters who felt he was overly critical and not easy to get along with, there was no evidence that he was deliberately bullying people. The evidence indicated that otherwise, he was "a highly competent firefight - er" who wasn't given an opportunity to change his ways of delivering criticism and feedback, the court said, adding that Golob only used pro- fanity in the presence of other firefighters, not the general public, and profanity was common in the fire hall. Pattern of insolent behaviour The court also found that Golob's behaviour, which involved "derisive or contemptuous lan- guage directed towards a superior" was better characterized as insolence rather than insubor- dination. However, while insolence may not be considered as serious as insubordination, the evidence demonstrated a pattern of behaviour that "viewed cumulatively, constitutes a fun- damental breach of the employment contract, making the continuing relationship unwork- able," the court added. "Broadly put, there was a breakdown in the chain of command, specifically the open con- tempt Mr. Golob exhibited towards [the chief], through his words and actions, over a sustained period of time," the court said. "Moreover, the behaviour of Mr. Golob, in general and in par- ticular during the hiring of a second deputy chief, was fundamentally incompatible with the duty of loyalty that he owed to the city in his capacity as a deputy chief." The court also noted that Golob didn't ex - pressly deny anything, but he qualified his be- haviour as "borne of frustration" and he was questioning the new chief's education and qualifications. In addition, the discovery of the after- acquired evidence through the messages on Golob's work cellphone made the case for just-cause termination "unassailable," said the court. The messages were another indicator that Golob had undermined the chief and the hiring process, damaging the employment relation - ship beyond repair, said the court in upholding the termination for cause. For more information, see: • Golob v. Fort St. John (City), 2021 BCSC 2192 (B.C. S.C.). 6 | | December 15, 2021 December 15, 2021 « from B.C. DEPUTY on page 1 Cases and Trends Cases and Trends Firefighters unwilling to mentor with deputy fire chief Many firefighters were unwilling to be mentored by the deputy fire chief. CREDIT: CACTUSOUP iSTOCK

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