FPSLREB Decisions

The grievor was a foreman and was the trades supervisor, including of the complainant, who held a team leader position. The grievor could assign, supervise, and evaluate the work of maintenance workers directly or through a team leader. As a team leader, the complainant managed and supervised five maintenance workers and followed up. Over time, the complainant had noticed that the grievor's instructions were contradictory, that he was overtaking him to assign work to his subordinates, and that he had begun to denigrate him in front of the team. The complainant made a harassment complaint after a series of incidents occurred. An investigation was conducted, and the employer accepted the findings that the grievor had harassed the complainant. The employer found that the misconduct was inconsistent with an employee's expected behaviour under the values and ethics code. The employer terminated the grievor's employment because of his misconduct. The grievor filed a grievance against the termination in which he challenged that he had harassed the complainant. The Board found that the employer demonstrated that the grievor had harassed the complainant. In doing so, he had contravened the values and principles of the values and ethics code, and therefore, misconduct had occurred that warranted disciplinary action. The grievor engaged in repeated behaviours with the complainant that he knew, or reasonably should have known, could have been undesirable and offensive or hurtful, within the meaning of the harassment definition in the employer's policy, as follows: diminishing and discrediting the complainant in the eyes of other employees by the disrespectful manner in which the grievor apologized to the complainant, undermining the complainant's authority and credibility in the eyes of his subordinates, questioning his skills as a team leader and obstructing his daily work, refusing to provide the complainant with the information necessary to do his job, and threatening him with losing his position. The Board concluded that the dismissal was not excessive. The grievor had demonstrated serious misconduct toward the complainant by harassing him. The Board considered the following aggravating factors: the harassment came from a supervisor against one of his subordinates, the grievor's refusal to acknowledge the offensive and hurtful nature of his behaviour and its consequences on the complainant, his lack of remorse, minimizing the seriousness of his behaviour and its impact on both the complainant and the team, and placing responsibility for his inappropriate behaviour on others. With respect to mitigating factors, the Board found that the grievor had a clean disciplinary record, 32 years of service, and several years as a foreman. The Board concluded that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors.

Grievance denied.