Being a unionized employee means never having to take responsibility for your actions. I was appalled by the results of an arbitration wherein a previously dismissed health region employee was returned to her position with full back pay and benefits after breaching the SHR's confidentiality and privacy policies (SP June 12/10.) She used her position to access information on a male companion's pharmaceutical information for personal reasons and then shared that information with others. Her union (SEIU-West) filed a grievance on her behalf for unjust dismissal.
Her defence included her "medical state" at the time of the breach. She had come to work suffering the ill effects of excessive alcohol and marijuana use the previous evening. You would think that in itself would be a cause for dismissal considering the damage that could have been done by her during her shift because she was not of a clear mind while performing her duties.
A short while ago when a outside contractor inadvertently lost some health cards designated for destruction there was a hullabaloo regarding the privacy of patients. At the time the unions seemed to suggest these errors would not happen if this job was done inside the system by unionized employees. I guess this means my privacy would be better protected - unless I tick off a unionized employee looking for payback.
I'll take my chances with the outside contractor.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
What else would expect from a province that saw a Safeway cashier appointed Minister of Labour (Deb Higgins). Good grief..... I haven't read all the details about this, but if true what a sideshow.
ReplyDeleteThis is TWICE now in the last month a unionized member of the government has stolen private information and passed used it for personal purposes. I would hope that all citizens receive the same treatment, unionized or not, which has me wondering what the point of the privacy laws are? Are we never going to someone accountable for their theft of private information?
I'm not sure I feel any more comfortable with an outside contractor, and even more I better not hear a single union call for the firing of an employee or loss of a contract by the company when a privacy leak from a private company eventually happens. Hypocrisy at its worst.
As for her 'mental state' at the time of the incident, is that really what unions are fighting for these days? I can understand their need to protect workers rights, but the fact they consider it a worker's right to come into work hungover and still 'high' (or recovering from being high) is absurd. How in the hell do they grieve this? I know union supporters read this blog from time to time, so please defend your union here?
She goes out and smokes weed and drinks alcohol to the point she is unable to perform her job properly the next day and the union defends that?
I take it you disagree with the arbitrator. Isn't this what arbitration is for? To settle disputes?
ReplyDeleteAnd why did she access this info? Oh yeah, she suspected someone drugged her without her knowledge.
I'm not a union member, but the union did what it is supposed to do (and is paid to do via union dues) defend their member. The same as a lawyer who defends their client.
The employer and employee disagreed with the punishment for the "crime". The arbitrator agreed. The punishment was disproportionate considering her work history and other mitigating factors.
One of the key principles in employment law is "progressive discipline".
What a sorry response Ghostryder. If a doctor performs surgery when "under the weather" and causes harm, should be let off because he usually performs well? This wasn't a mix-up in a fast food order, it was a breach of patient confidentality for personal reasons. And if it were for her own use only, why share that information with others?
ReplyDeleteMaybe its time to change the rules on arbitration to allow for appeals from riduclous decisions.
Ghostryder, I agree with the Mistress on your sorry response. This is a rather exceptional situation.
ReplyDeleteIf you suspect that you were drugged, to the extent that you are still suffering memory loss the following day (she did not remember calling and gossiping the information with her friend), then the right thing to do is go to the police and file a complaint. The WRONG thing to do is to illegally access someone's information through unauthorized use of a government computer then telephone your friends to share it.
Your defending this situation is like you defending me if I broke into someone's house and stole their bank records simply so I could see whether the stole money from me.
You may not be a union member but your obviously are biased towards the left, every response you post here (and I on CBC I presume under the same name) is trashing anyone not NDP/union. You try having a little objectivity.
This is an open and shut case in my mind, clearly what the arbitrator is saying is that it is free season on our confidential information so long as it isn't sold for money. Access it all you want and pass it along to anyone you want as long as you don't take any money.
"I take it you disagree with the arbitrator. Isn't this what arbitration is for? To settle disputes?"
ReplyDeleteYes but only in Saskatchewan. Access some of the arbitration decisions from across the country and this decision is contrary to many of them.
As the poster above mentioned, only in a Province where a unionized grocery clerk can be promoted to Minister of Labour is this possible.
If you think a cashier becoming Labour Minister is scary how about a drivers ed teacher becoming Minister of Health.
ReplyDeleteSo, was she drugged by the guy or not?
ReplyDelete"Your defending this situation is like you defending me if I broke into someone's house and stole their bank records simply so I could see whether the stole money from me."
ReplyDeleteUmm, if I was your lawyer and you were paying me to defend you, then YES I would defend you. That's my job. It is the job of the union to defend their members.
"You may not be a union member but your obviously are biased towards the left, every response you post here (and I on CBC I presume under the same name) is trashing anyone not NDP/union. You try having a little objectivity."
You obviously don't have a clue. I tend to drift to the right, especially when it involves money. I do however LOVE to play devils advocate.
"What a sorry response Ghostryder. If a doctor performs surgery when "under the weather" and causes harm, should be let off because he usually performs well? This wasn't a mix-up in a fast food order, it was a breach of patient confidentality for personal reasons."
Sorry, but this wasn't even close to a doctor who kills or injures a patient. More serious than mixing up a fast food order, yes.
How exactly would you react if you thought someone you knew had drugged you? Are you certain you would act rationally?
Was what she did wrong? Yes.
Was the punishment proportional to the "crime"? I don't know. The arbitrator thought not. I didn't get to hear all the evidence. And quite frankly, given the quality of the reporting in the StarKleenex I always have grave doubts about whether I am getting the whole story or not.
I have been personally aquainted with too many things that have been reported in the press, and know that the whole story doesn't make it into the paper.
Ghostryder,
ReplyDeleteWhat value do you put on privacy? In the last month we've heard of two privacy leaks, one which was passed along to an outside organization for solicitation purposes and the other which was accessed on a colleagues computer and passed along to friends. You seem sluff this off as some minor deal that falls somewhere between killing someone in surgery and mixing up a fast food order. You continue to imply that a union-employee relationship is similar to a lawyer-client relationship, which if you know anything about both is hardly a comparison (more absurd than the Mistress surgery comparison). So it would appear you advocate that a union is required to defend an employee under all circumstances?
What if an employee were to assault another employee. Who's interest is the union required to protect if the workplace becomes too hostile for both, does the union advocate for both (proposing conflicting arguments depending on each employee's case)?
As mentioned the above, which you conveniently glossed over in your selective response, the flaw lies within the system itself. Something that this post was attempting to highlight. Since you're not a union member and obviously not a lawyer, I assume you haven't had the pleasure of partaking in Saskatchewan arbitration. After years of power the NDP has stockpiled the process with left leaning arbitrators and set a scary precedence of cases. This is a major problem for businesses in Saskatchewan. I agree that unions have their place in society, however, the level of power they have been given in this province is a ridiculous. This case is prime example of the farce the system has become (as was the Teamsters case).
The SGEU and other government unions love to get on the podium at bargaining time and declare what the government stands for, well this here is what the unions stand for. Defending thieves who illegally access and share your personal information.
The fact that an arbitrator defined "for their benefit" as being directly linked to monetary gain is proof enough that this arbitrator was looking to side with employee at any cost.
Although I am not familiar with this whole case I would have to agree with the Mistress and those outraged with this decision. Generally speaking the law should hold true for the average citizen and not be affected by an arbitrators personal vendetta. That's right folks, look at who made this decision. Did they have a grudge against this employer and/or the Government? "Make them pay for what they did to me" by making them pay 2 plus years of back wages to an employee that uses the "Oh SORRRRY I was hung over and my indiscretion didn't "HURT" anyone. If I'm not mistaken the "arbitrator" was once employed by a union in the health field and had recently been dismissed from the LRB. This decision reeks of payback and shows exactly why my New Saskatchewan kicked her sorry butt out of that position. Maybe the individual in question that had their privacy raped should launch legal action for damages against this employee. Is there a degree of slander here???
ReplyDeleteAs for all the rhetoric about who should and shouldn't be a Minister. The best ones are generally those not directly involved in their portfolio prior to taking over the position. Really does someone need to be an environmentalist be that Minister or a lawyer to head that department or say an accountant for finance. I think not! If the person at the top has surround themselves with specialists as opposed to believing they know it all we would be far better off as they will better serve the "average" citizen.
Now back to this employee... Maybe she was just ahead of her time in the Health Region and realized that taking a "sick day" every time she was hung over would someday be frowned upon and look bad on her record.
Does the union not care that she showed up for work in the condition she was in? Her job is to monitor and help the sick and those helping the sick. Yet according to the union it is all part of the job to occasionally show up hung and still stoned. Glad to know where unions stand
ReplyDelete"You seem sluff this off as some minor deal that falls somewhere between killing someone in surgery and mixing up a fast food order."
ReplyDeleteyes, I think that this was more serious that mixing up my order at McD's and less serious than a doctor injuring a patient. Apparently you think otherwise.
"You continue to imply that a union-employee relationship is similar to a lawyer-client relationship, which if you know anything about both is hardly a comparison (more absurd than the Mistress surgery comparison). So it would appear you advocate that a union is required to defend an employee under all circumstances?"
No, unions don't have to defend their members in all situations. I recall last year (I think) a City employee was fired for accessing child porn on his work computer. The union did not make any effort to object to the dismissal of that employee.
When an union fails to defend their members they can (and do) get sued for failing to do their duty, which is to represent their members.
In this case an employee was disciplined using the most harsh discipline available to an employer. Firing. The employee felt that this was disproportionate to the "crime". The union apparently agreed, so they represented her. The parties involved agreed to go to arbitration. Would your outrage be the same if the employee has gone to court with her own lawyer and the result had been the same?
This was nothing more than a disagreement between employer and employee over whether the disciplinary actions of the employer were appropriate to the situation.
If this had been an employee of, say Cameco, and the employee had been fired, sued Cameco for wrongful dismissal and won in court would you still be outraged?
Anyone who follows civil employment law is well aware that judges do not look kindly on summary dismissal for just cause except in the most egregious of cases. The employer in this case did not appear to attempt to use any other form of discipline other than termination.
"Anyone who follows civil employment law is well aware that judges do not look kindly on summary dismissal for just cause except in the most egregious of cases."
ReplyDeleteWhat is your basis for this? From the employment law that I have looked at this is far from the truth. The vast majority of adjudicated employment law cases debate the merits of just cause termination or not. Once just cause has been established the courts have not had any problem with summary dismissal. The issue at hand most of the time is whether there was just cause or not. You need to reread the decisions you refer to, because once just cause is established then summary dismissal is not frowned upon by the courts.
"yes, I think that this was more serious that mixing up my order at McD's and less serious than a doctor injuring a patient. Apparently you think otherwise."
What I was attempting to highlight was your cavalier attitude towards the charges. You know what else falls between mixing up the McD's order and injuring a patient while impaired: assault, street racing, dui, littering even perhaps.
My point was that your taking two extremes as you did really skews the actual nature of the act in question. I would suggest that stealing private information and disseminating it to others lies closer to the doctor than it does to fast food worker.
As someone who referenced the law a few times, are you advocating a no harm no foul scenario here? Your implication is that a union has a duty to protect members BUT it is able to breach that duty in certain circumstances (ie. child porn case). The public was lucky in this case that little damage was done to the victim (the one who had their information stolen, not the one who thought she was drugged so took vigilante justice). What would have happened if she published the information (not for monetary gain though) or put it on the internet or used it to against the victim? Well in future cases we know now that any competent lawyer when facing one of the above scenarios can now point to this decision and the Teamsters case as precedence that you can't lose your job for illegally accessing someone's information and passing it on to a third party. So why not just scrap our privacy laws? What is the point if people who break these laws face no repercussions?
Also on broad based policy how is this different than her stealing anything else from the hospital? What if in her 'mental state' she stole a bottle of Vicodins (and forgot about that too) or took a handful of needles so her and her male companion can do some more drugs the next night (and then come into work in a 'mental state' again).
In summary Ghostryder, many things bother me about this decision. Notably the cavalier attitude the arbitrator/government has shown towards those who intentionally violate the privacy laws and pass the information along to others. Secondly, the fact that in our arbitration process being hung over and still feeling effects of being drugged are considered 'mental state' and a justifiable excuse in these cases. Again I can't wait for the first time a lawyer for the heavy machine operator advances the same argument about his client's 'mental state' when he clocked in that morning (even add a little spice as he too can think maybe he was drugged, with no evidence needed to support it). It shows the ludicrousness of the system where such an excuse can be offered and has now firmly been implanted in the precedence of these files. As mentioned above, this reeks of a scorned arbitrator seeking revenge