An employee who yelled and swore at a manager about a written test for a maintenance position, and a few days later took a gun out of a box in the company parking lot and “pumped it”, was fired for cause, an arbitrator has decided. The employee, who already had a lengthy discipline record, also told the human resources manager that he would “regret his actions” and that the employee’s brother” knows” the HR manager, which the arbitrator in the employee’s dismissal grievance found was a veiled threat.
The employee said that the gun, which resembled an assault rifle, was an “airsoft” gun, and that he simply opened the gun box to look at it. He admitted later that it was not a good idea to have done that.
The arbitrator said that the employee’s confrontations with the managers, taken alone, might not have justified dismissal, even though they were very serious in light of Ontario’s Bill 168 which introduced harassment and violence provisions to the Occupational Health and Safety Act in 2010.
However, the employee’s Facebook post after his dismissal showed that he was not willing to take any responsibility for his actions nor show a willingness to avoid outbursts in the future. The Facebook post described the workplace as a “s—hole” and said that he felt sorry for employees who still had to work “in a place with so much negativity”. He also wrote that since he was “caned” [sic] he no longer had to “concentrate on all the bull[—-] I put up with at that place for 10 years”.
In conclusion, the arbitrator decided that given the employee’s already lengthy disciplinary record and his continuing negative feelings towards the human resources manager and company, as shown by his Facebook post, dismissal was appropriate.
Service Employees’ International Union, Local 1 Canada v Specialty Care Trillium Centre, 2016 CanLII 23212 (ON LA)
