Judge This Case

[Turkeytop]

Grievor - Female, age 44

Job Title - Registered Nurse

Rate of Pay - $41.00/hr

Seniority - 19 years

Discipline Record - Spotless

Nature of Grievance - Improper suspension


Remedy sought - Disciplinary suspension stricken from record and full redress for monetary losses


The Employer operates a chain of Nursing Homes across Canada, including the 140 bed facility where the Grievor is employed, in a small south west Ontario town.

On the day of the incident giving rise to the suspension. The grievor was working the third shift and arrived at work at 4:PM.
When she arrived the other nurses were gathered around a gurney near the Nurses Station. One of the residents, Mr. H, a 90 year old lady was in severe medical distress. They had moved her out there so they could watch her.

Being the Senior Nurse on the floor the grievor took charge of the situation. As they worked on the patient the phone rang at the Nurses station rang. The grievor quickly grabbed up the phone. It was the home's new Administrator. She wanted to discuss some new paper work she wanted to introduce to the facility.

The grievor explained what was happening and suggested it wasn't a good time. The Administrator persisted. The crew signaled to the grievor that the crisis was getting worse. She told the Administrator she had to go and hung up the phone.

The grievor made the decision to call for an ambulance to take Mrs H to the hospital. After the ambulance left, the crew on the floor returned to their regular duties.

A short time later the Administrator called the grievor to her office. The Administrator advised her that she was immediately suspended for one week for insubordination.

The grievor left immediately.

Mrs H died later that evening.

The next day, the grievor met with her Union and filed a grievance.

Does the grievance succeed?

[Matt]

Yes.

[Robert Faygo]

I sure hope so.

But I think there is a twist to this case. Hopefully it's that the administrator faced disciplinary action instead and not that the nurse left her job.

[Rate This]

Slam dunk.

[Turkeytop]

The grievance did succeed and it didn't take long. I called the grievor at home. I told her to enjoy her week off and we would deal with it after she went back.

The Company's regional director out of Toronto called and asked me to go up there and meet with him. I told him if he wanted to meet with me, he would have to come down here to meet me with the grievorr present. We agreed to meet the following week at the Home.

At the meeting, he knew his case was weak. He proposed changing the suspension to a verbal reprimand. Normally disciplinary notations remain on an employee's record for six months. He proposed to make it thirty days, provided there was no other discipline during that period. This was clearly a face saving measure for the administrator. In our view, that would just put a target on the grievor's back for the next 30 days.

We countered with Seven days. The seven days were already up and there had been no other discipline, because the grievor had not been at work.The reprimand would have no effect. After meeting privately with his administrator he agreed to our terms.

The verbal reprimand was removed from her record and they cut her a cheque for her lost wages.

By t6he end of that month, there was a new Administrator. The other one was transferred to another location Rumours had it that she had been transferred to our location after getting into trouble somewhere else.

[TC Talks]

Do you have administrative unions like we have here in the United states?

I would have loved to see the administrator file agreements based on the settlement with the nurses grievance.

[Turkeytop]

The Administrator was not in a Union. I would be very surprised if any discipline was recorded on her file.