(Montreal) Two men who had been hired through the I Contribute system, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, will indeed be able to submit their claim to contest the end of their employment, at the expense of the union.
The Administrative Labor Tribunal thus concludes that the CISSS de Laval workers’ union, attached to the CSN, failed in its duty of fair representation, by refusing to help them contest the end of their employment.
The two men had been hired in 2020 and 2021 in the context of the health emergency.
The ministerial decree specified that such hirings were temporary.
In 2022, the two workers had been informed of the end of their employment, for different reasons.
They then approached the union – to which they paid union dues – to ask it to contest this end of employment.
The union said it couldn’t do anything because of their temporary employee status. He argued that the ministerial order prevented them from having access to the grievance procedure provided for in the collective agreement.
The plaintiffs had therefore filed complaints against the union, accusing it of having failed in its duty of fair representation.
It is this complaint that they have just won.
Initially, the union had “vigorously” contested the two complaints, reports the Tribunal. In September 2022, the union had even filed motions for summary dismissal for each of them. “According to him, the complaints are abusive and doomed to failure, which leads him to ask for their rejection,” relates the Tribunal.
It was not until June 2023 that the union changed its tune. “He now acknowledges having erred in refusing to file grievances in order to contest the terminations of employment of the complainants,” notes the Tribunal.
“The union reiterates that it made no investigation before informing the complainants of its refusal to represent them. He offers them an apology and now wishes to take matters into their own hands by defending their rights in the context of an arbitration procedure,” the Tribunal relates.
“The plaintiffs say they feel angry because of the way the union behaved towards them before the day of the hearing. Nevertheless, they accept the apologies,” adds the Tribunal.
Administrative judge Erick Waddell concluded that the union had been “grossly negligent”.
“For the Tribunal, the union’s admission of a complete lack of analysis of the plaintiffs’ files, despite the assistance requested by the latter, is sufficient to conclude that it was grossly negligent on its part. It was without doing the slightest verification that he decided not to contest the end of employment through grievances. However, minimal and serious verifications were necessary given the seriousness of the situation experienced by the complainants, that is to say a loss of employment,” concluded the Tribunal.