The 4 staff have been uncovered to a confirmed case of COVID-19 whereas on shift on the firehall and, in line with the arbitrator’s abstract, they have been “instructed to isolate and to make use of sick depart to cowl any missed shifts.”
Article content material
An arbitrator has sided with 4 firefighters who have been “pressured” to make use of sick days by their employer, the Ottawa Worldwide Airport, after that they had been in shut contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case.
Article content material
The 4 staff have been uncovered to a confirmed case of COVID-19 whereas on shift on the firehall and, in line with the arbitrator’s abstract, they have been “instructed to isolate and to make use of sick depart to cowl any missed shifts.”
Article content material
Every of the workers later examined unfavourable, and none confirmed any signs.
The union filed a grievance in opposition to the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier Worldwide Airport Authority on Jan. 20, arguing, partly, that the “imposition of sick depart may depart the grievors with out sick depart in the event that they later fell in poor health.”
The union argued the times off shouldn’t be charged “sick depart” and may relatively be logged as “particular depart,” a provision within the firefighters’ contract that will apply to a “pressured absence from work.”
Article content material
The arbitrator agreed, and in a choice final week concluded that sick depart “didn’t apply to a scenario the place the employer ordered the workers to stay off work.
“The staff by no means had the requisite sickness or damage which was a precondition for sick depart,” the arbitrator concluded, and stated the firefighters have been entitled to make use of these days as particular depart.
Every of the firefighters had a restricted stability of hours they might use for sick depart, and in line with the arbitration abstract, one of many 4 staff had solely 12 hours banked — wanting the hours required to cowl the isolation interval.
The airport “superior” 4 and a half hours to the employee “to make sure (he) had enough sick depart credit throughout his self-isolation.”
Article content material
Two of the firefighters utilized to the Office Security Insurance coverage Board, however their profit claims have been denied on the idea they “had not skilled any signs, sickness, or illness ensuing from an publicity to a dangerous chemical or substance within the office” through the shut contact on Dec. 9, 2021.
Throughout grievance arguments, the airport authority “emphasised the discretionary nature” of particular depart, which is granted by the employer for quite a lot of causes, and stated it had “moderately denied staff entry to that paid depart … given the employer’s urged interpretation of the sick depart regime.”
The union argued the firefighters met the standards for paid particular depart and stated the airport authority “acted unreasonably in denying them that depart.”
