Canadian Labour Reporter

7 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2017 CANADIAN LABOUR REPORTER COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS The collective agreement stated: "Claim for recent related experience, if any, shall be made in writing by the employee at the time of hiring on the application for employment or otherwise." On Oct. 15, 2015, after she was awarded the VRC position, Novak sent in an application for experi- ence credit. But when the hospital denied the application, it claimed that the clause only applied to newly hired workers, not those with previous experience at the hospital, such as Novak. The union, Ontario Public Ser- vice Employees' Union (OPSEU), Local 331, grieved the decision and argued the phrase "or other- wise" meant Novak should have been considered for the extra credit when she was hired into a new position. It argued that because the meaning of the word "otherwise" does not include any time limit, it should be given more weight in interpreting this case in favour of Novak. The employer argued that No- vak was endorsed for the new po- sition under the promotion-to- higher-rated-classification, which provides an employee successfully integrated into the new classifica- tion with a higher salary, and the experience credit should not be part of the decision. Arbitrator Christine Schmidt dismissed the grievance. "In light of the language of arti- cle 36.02, as well as the use of other language in those other clauses reproduced above, it is clear to me that the parties to this collective agreement have clearly expressed an intent that experience credit claims are to be made by newly hired employees at the time of their hiring on their applications for employment to the hospital or by some other written vehicle at some other time shortly before or within a reasonable period af- ter accepting employment," said Schmidt. "What that time line might be is within the hospital's discretion and must be reasonable on the facts of any particular case. That issue did not arise on the facts be- fore me," said Schmidt. Because the collective agree- ment added the phrase "newly hired," it trumped the "otherwise" meaning in its plain language in- terpretation, she said. "Moreover, the union's argu- ment fails to take account of the third sentence of article 36.02, which states: 'The centre will credit the employee with an ap- propriate increment level on the salary grid such that a newly hired employee will not receive more than one grid increment for each year of recent relevant experi- ence,'" said Schmidt. "The reference to 'newly hired' in this sentence reinforces that the parties meant to provide em- ployees an opportunity to claim experience credit only at the time of their initial hire," said Schmidt. "Employees are not newly hired every time they successfully com- pete for a new position with the same employer. They are newly hired only once: At the time of their hire to the hospital, and it is at that time that the employee must claim experience credit on the application for employment (or otherwise)." Reference: Ontario Shores Centre For Mental Health Sciences and Ontario Public Service Employees' Union, Local 331. Christine Schmidt — arbitrator. Craig Rix for the employer. Tim Mulhall, Jonathan Leung for the employee. Oct. 18, 2017. happened. So on Feb. 26, she con- fronted Watts and told her Todd had said Watts was disturbed about how often Bergen's husband came to the office. Watts denied the allegation. Eventually, on March 1, Bergen, Todd and Watts had a meeting to discuss the email and its contents. It was left unresolved as to how the email came to light. Later, Watts concluded Bergen had logged into her computer at some point and accessed her per- sonal email account and printed the email string herself. When she was confronted with the ac- cusation, Bergen denied accessing Watts' computer. Bergen continued to maintain she found the document in a re- cycling bin. But Watts insisted she never printed the email. On July 6, Watts and Bergen were the only two workers in the office that day. Watts had some work that involved being away from her computer for the after- noon. But when she came back to the computer at 5:15 p.m. to check her email, she found the account was locked. The following morning, Watts called the IT help desk and was advised someone tried to ac- cess her account unsuccessfully at 1:10 p.m. the previous day, which caused it to lock up. She notified management about it and said she wanted someone to find out what hap- pened. After an investigation, Dustin Godfrey, IT specialist, discovered Bergen's computer was used to access another employee's Micro- soft Outlook email program when he wasn't in the office on July 6, and he found Bergen's computer was the source of the lockout of Watts' computer. After an investigation with the other employee, Jim Coulter, it was revealed he had shared his password in the past with Bergen. He was advised that employees were not to do so and he was given a verbal warning. A Sept. 9 meeting was set up with Bergen and Gail Audette- Sand, SCIC regional manager, and two other managers. During the meeting, Bergen was asked mul- tiple times why she had accessed two other employees' accounts, which was a breach of the privacy and security policy. Again, she denied doing so. Audette-Sand decided to dis- miss Bergen via a letter: "You have violated the confidential- ity of your coworker by accessing his computer account. You were dishonest throughout the entire interview and provided no rea- sonable explanation of how the unauthorized entries occurred." On Sept. 13, the union, the Sas- katchewan Government & Gen- eral Employees' Union, grieved the firing and argued it was too harsh considering Bergen's long service and lack of discipline in the past. Arbitrator Anne Wallace de- nied the grievance. "The breach of policy, the lies, the explanations, and the lack of real remorse or acceptance of responsibility confirm the em- ployer's conclusion that the em- ployment relationship and the trust between Bergen and SCIC are irreparable. SCIC was justified in terminating Bergen's employ- ment." Bergen's actions at the various meetings and at the arbitration hearing showed she hadn't fully owned up to her misdeed, said Wallace. "When she was caught in the breach, Bergen lied about it multiple times, and when she fi- nally did admit what she had done, she now has explanations for lying which do not withstand scrutiny. Bergen's approach and her atti- tude at the hearing demonstrate she has not taken responsibility for what she did." Reference: Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation and Saskatchewan Government & General Employees' Union. Anne Wallace — arbitrator. Gordon Hamilton for the employer. Larry Buchinski, Alan Evans for the employee. May 13, 2017. Employees can be 'newly hired only once': Arbitrator < Leader pg. 1 < Hospital pg. 1

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