Union wants nearly $600,000 from city for ignoring workplace respect rules

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This article was published 20/11/2017 (2889 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A labour arbitration hearing was told Monday that city hall needs to incur a “large” financial penalty to force it to comply with its own workplace policies.

Lawyer Keith LaBossiere, representing MGEU Local 911, said city hall failed to act on an investigative report that found Fire Paramedic Chief John Lane had breached the city’s own respectful workplace policy, the city took no action to correct what he called the “toxic” workplace environment for paramedics, and, that Lane continues to treat the paramedics and the union that represents them in a prejudicial manner.

LaBossiere told arbitrator Arne Peltz that he should order the city to pay MGEU $50,000 in damages and an additional $1,500 to each of the 350 ambulance paramedics represented by the union. In total the union is asking the city to pay $575,000.

“This is a case that requires you to provide (city hall) with an incentive to respect their obligations because without that incentive, it is absolutely clear they will not,” LaBossiere said. “This union has been undermined, marginalized, by (Lane’s) own words, by his inaction and his actions following the investigation and by the city’s (condoning) of that behaviour, it is allowing this chief to essentially ignore this union and hold a grudge against them because they had the gall to call him on his offensive conduct.”

Monday was the fourth and final day of the hearing that began in October into a grievance launched by the paramedics’ union in the aftermath of a respectful workplace complaint against Lane from 156 EMS paramedics as a result of a presentation Lane had made to an international firefighters’ conference in August 2015.

The paramedics objected to a brochure promoting Lane’s presentation as offensive and insulting. The complaint prompted city hall to launch an independent investigation that upheld the complaint and found that Lane had not done enough to alter the wording of the brochure and should not have made his presentation. When Lane refused to issue an immediate apology, the union filed the grievance.

LaBossiere and City of Winnipeg lawyer John Jacobs used the last day to sum up their arguments.

Peltz is expected to issue a written ruling on the case in three to six months.

The monetary penalties were included in a list of 13 declarations the union said Peltz should make in his ruling, including a demand that Lane sign a union-drafted letter of apology and distribute it to all members of the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service.

Jacobs said city hall acted properly throughout the dispute, hiring an outside investigator to test the paramedics’ complaint, and that Lane’s apology in November 2016 should have ended the matter.

Jacobs said the MGEU remains unsatisfied with the city’s handling of the issue but that cash and the MGEU’s other demands won’t resolve the internal department issues between the two rival unions representing EMS paramedics and firefighters or heal the relationship between the union and Lane.

“If there are issues of mutual trust, it’s not going to be cured by money, it’s not going to cured by forced apologies,” Jacobs said.

LaBossiere said the evidence shows that Lane never believed he had done anything wrong and had no intention of apologizing unless he was forced to so, which renders his later apology as insincere and insufficient and he continues to treat the paramedics and their union with disdain as a result of the complaint filed against him.

LaBossiere said Lane’s testimony in October revealed him to be stubborn, petulant and disingenuous. “He was evasive and at times his evidence was incredible. You cannot and ought not to accept anything that he said.”

LaBossiere cited several labour cases where employers were penalized for breaching collective agreements, including a previous case in which city hall was ordered to pay $50,000 to another civic union.

LaBossiere said city hall had an obligation after the investigation was completed to meet with the union to put corrective steps in place, but it failed to take any action. He added that Jacob’s arguments demonstrate that city hall has no intention to take any steps to create a respectful workplace within the WFPS.

“The city had an obligation not to just investigate this, but to meaningfully consider the investigation,” he said. “Not only did they not do it well, they did nothing. They have an obligation under their own policy to sit down with the union and go through a corrective action plan.

“They ignored it. That’s bad faith.”

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca