Glad Tidings: Arbitrator Reinstates Temporary Employee on the Eve of Christmas Eve

altOn the eve of Christmas Eve, glad tidings arrived in the form of an arbitration award for a temporary employee who was discharged from Canada Post on September 7, 2012. In his award dated December 23, 2013, Arbitrator Vince Ready set aside the Grievor’s discharge and reinstated her to her employment.

Canada Post discharged the Grievor on the basis of allegations that arose from her first assignment to a Letter Carrier route at the Richmond Delivery Center (RDC) and an incident which took place approximately one year later after she was assigned to a route at the North Burnaby Delivery Center (NBDC).

In the facts of the case, the Grievor was assigned to a part-time route at the RDC for two weeks in mid-August 2011. After completing the assignment, she was reassigned to the Capilano Delivery Center (CDC). Shortly thereafter, the Grievor received a letter from RDC Supervisor Sabra Bakkar, who alleged that she had delayed mail on two occasions. The first allegation was found inadmissible at arbitration but the second allegation upon which the Corporation chose to rely related to the discovery of a Delivery Notification Card (DNC) at the RDC a week following the Grievor’s attempted delivery of a parcel to an apartment in Richmond. The DNC card was discovered after the Grievor has been reassigned to the CDC. Although Bakker did not know how or why the DNC card arrived at the RDC, she alleged that the Grievor had failed to comply with delivery procedures and had thus delayed the mail. As a result, the Grievor received a five-day suspension.

At arbitration, Canada Post argued that the Grievor either failed to attempt delivery of the item or did not leave a DNC card after unsuccessfully attempting delivery. But in her evidence, Bakkar admitted that she was not in a position to say that the Grievor had not attempted to deliver the item. Bakkar also admitted that she was unable to confirm that the Grievor had failed to comply with delivery procedures. Bakkar further admitted that she not bothered to contact the customer in order to verify whether her allegations were accurate. In his analysis, Arbitrator Ready found that Canada Post’s failure to properly investigate its allegations did not satisfy its onus of proving its allegations:

In considering these two explanations, the Corporation did not contact the customer to discuss the DNC card or the attempted delivery, or fully investigate other possible alternatives as to how the DNC card appeared in the sorting trays after it was to have been delivered to a client. I am not satisfied on the balance of probabilities without details from a detailed investigation that these conclusions, both of which led to the Corporation’s disciplinary response, are substantiated.

The incident that resulted in the Grievor’s discharge occurred approximately one year later, when the Grievor was assigned to the coverage of a route at the NBDC. On August 23, 2012, the Grievor returned to the NBDC after completing her deliveries to discover that an Xpresspost item had been left at her case. As it turned out, the item had been misrouted and was left at her case by another employee following her departure. Assuming by its late arrival that it was the next day’s mail, the Grievor left the item in her flat case for delivery the next day. The discovery of the item led to a disciplinary interview, during which the Grievor acknowledged her error in judgment and offered a commitment for the future. Nonetheless, she was fired. Superintendent Wendy Duggan, described in the North Burnaby “Handy-Dandy Letter-Carrier Guide” as a “super-duper-intendant” (sic) authored the discharge letter, claiming that the Grievor had broken the “trust relationship” with Canada Post.

In his ruling, Arbitrator Ready accepted that the Grievor had made an error in judgment and noted her commitment for the future. Accordingly, the discharge was set aside in place of a five-day suspension. As a result, the Grievor is now to be made whole for her lost wages and benefits (a period of approximately sixteen (16) months).

In Solidarity,

Ken Mooney, Regional Grievance Officer