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Male - Age 55

Job Title - Security Guard

Rate of Pay - $18.60/hr

Seniority - Seven Years

Discipline Record - Clear

Nature of Grievance - Improper discharge

Remedy sought - Reinstatement with full reimbursement for all monetary losses.


The Emloyer is a very specialized Security Company. They have only one client, one of the big three auto Companies. They provide security services to every one of the Company's plants in North America.

The grievor's job was to man the gate house on the night shift. He would check trucks entering and leaving the plant. A few times on each shift he was also required to patrol the property around the outside of the plant, in one of the Security Company's marked vehicles. The property also included the employee parking lot, in front of the plant.

There is also a second employee parking lot for employees who drive imported vehicles. That parking lot is across on the opposite side of a busy highway. He was also required to patrol that lot.

During a routine audit, The employer learned that the employee had lost his license for drunk driving. He had been driving their vehicle for six months without a license.

They fired him.

Does the grievance succeed?

Was being a licensed driver a job requirement that was communicated and agreed upon?

Was the license revocation temporary or permanent?

If temporary, when was the license set to be reinstated?

I'm not certain a license is required to operate a motor vehicle on private property. If not, there is no reason for discharge.

Loss of license for drunk driving first offense is two years.

He drove on the highway every night to reach the second employee parking lot.

I don't know Ontario law on that either. But driving to the import lot across the busy highway certainly required a valid license. If there had been an at-fault accident on the highway, the company would have been writing a big ol' check.

So back to my original question:

Is having a valid license a condition of employment that the employee agreed to?

Also, does the security company have other positions that the guard could have been assigned to while unable to drive?

By the time I got involved, the guy had already been off the job for about three weeks. I didn't have a lot of confidence that we could succeed in Arbitration.

I had a pretty decent working relationship with the Company's district manager. So I called him and proposed that he change the employee's record from a discharge to an unpaid suspension and reinstate the guy to a position that didn't involve driving.

He told me he'd talk to his people about it and get back to me

Seems like a reasonable solution for a guy that made a mistake.

Hope that he got to keep his job and that he's since been able to recognize the mistake and not let something like that happen again.

The District Manager called me back the next day and rejected the proposal. He said that if the guy had been forthright about his loss of license at the time it happened, they would have accommodated him in another position. But he had not he had continued to drive unlicensed, exposing the Company to possible liability every day.

He said honesty and integrity are essential attributes to work in the security industry. The grievor's lack of candor could even be grounds for loss of his security license.

After the call ended, I applied for arbitration. The Union sends the employer the names of three nominees for Arbitrator. The employer can agree to one of the Union's nominees or it can submit to the Union three other nominees for consideration.

I'd want to find out if the guy was driving himself to work each day. Would that be admissible as part of the arbitration? Or is it limited in scope to just his work performance?

Interesting case. The guy's embarrassment probably cost him more than the drunk diving conviction ultimately did. I could see the arbitrator suggesting giving him a different job at a lower pay rate (with no lost wages settlement).

After he received my list of nominees, the manager called me and asked if I would agree to grievance mediation. Mediation is voluntary. The mediator will try to get the parties to agree to a settlement. He can't compel the parties to accept any settlement, but if he can get them to agree and sign off on a settlement, then it becomes binding on both parties.

Of course we agreed to try mediation. If it doesn't work out, arbitration is still available.

So, the parties selected a mediator with whom we had both worked in the past.

He was able to get us to a settlement. With his seven years of seniority, had the grievor been laid off, instead of discharged, he would have been entitled to seven weeks severance pay.

The Company agreed to change the employee's record to show layoff instead of discharge and to pay him seven weeks of severance pay. They further agreed to provide a neutral letter of reference.