Arbitration for warring chaplains

Are they spiritual caregivers who were harassed and bullied by a vindictive boss, or troublemakers out to get the guy in charge because they didn't like change or taking direction?

A labour arbitrator will now decide, after the long-running hearing into allegations of bullying and verbal abuse in the spiritual care department at the St. Boniface General Hospital ended with closing arguments Saturday.

The three hospital chaplains alleging harassment have asked arbitrator Arne Peltz to award them a month off, $10,000 each, and disciplinary action for their boss, a priest they alleged bullied them.

Sister Jeannine Corbeil, Father Roland Lanoie and Rev. Carlyle Murrell-Cole claim the hospital's spiritual care director, Father Gerry Ward, verbally abused them, threatened to undermine their careers, then labelled them troublemakers.

"He caused them a great deal of stress," said lawyer Jake Giesbrecht, who represented the chaplains, who are members of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals and filed the grievance.

Since the hearing began last May, Peltz heard 23 days of evidence in what is believed to be Manitoba's first major arbitration case concerning alleged workplace bullying. When Peltz makes his decision, it will be binding.

The lawyer for the three chaplains argued Ward was treated like a "white knight" brought in to save a dysfunctional spiritual care department, but turned out to be a gossiping bully. Ward made a bad situation worse, with name-calling, making up stories to pit staff against each other and punishing those who questioned his actions, Giesbrecht said.

Ward's behaviour drove away two chaplains who left the hospital, but the administration never gave more than a "cursory review" to the complaints that followed by the nun, the priest and the minister, he said. The Respectful Workplace Act and the hospital's own policy were violated, but those in charge did nothing, said Giesbrecht, citing a few examples.

Ward, who referred to the department as a "kindergarten" and a nuclear medicine specialist as "the lady who glows in the dark," told Corbeil her size intimidated a chaplain and that her temper had others calling her Attila the Nun. At the hearing, the chaplain whom Ward said she intimidated denied that.

When Lanoie wanted to know why he wasn't getting his work schedule sent to him electronically anymore, Ward told him it was because Lanoie was rude to his assistant. Ward's assistant told the hearing she didn't know anything about it and that she hadn't reported to Ward that Lanoie was rude to her.

After Murrell-Cole, initially one of Ward's confidantes, was elected as the chaplains' union representative, he was removed from his long-held position as the psychiatric unit's chaplain and the office that went with it. Murrell-Cole was reassigned to a heavier workload and a desk he had to share with other chaplains.

The hospital defends Ward, arguing it is the three chaplains who are the problem. Lawyer Ken Maclean said the three chaplains are unhappy employees resistant to change who were out to get Ward and challenged their boss's authority.

In 2008, they ganged up on Ward, who started at the hospital in 2005, filing a grievance and dredging up anything they thought they could claim as harassment, said Maclean: "Just because there's a lot of allegations doesn't mean there's a case."

The hospital's head of human resources looked into their claims and brought in an outside consultant who said the three chaplains were the problem, not their boss, Maclean said. The other 11 chaplains had no complaints about Ward, Maclean said.

Ward walked into a "very troubled workplace... with problematic communication," Maclean said.

He tried to stop dissatisfied employees from sending out group emails undermining his authority and those who were "stirring the pot."

Ward was making decisions, not harassing employees, said Maclean. "If the workplace was stressful, it was not necessarily because of Father Ward."

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 15, 2010 A5