BC firefighter suspended due to open letter: Employment lawyer with the CHEK News

Interview Summary

A firefighter in Victoria B.C., was recently suspended due to a published open letter he penned criticizing the opening of a homeless shelter. While a collective bargaining agreement governs unionized employees, can employees in a non-unionized setting be penalized for posting personal opinions?

Dan Balkaran, a Vancouver employment lawyer and Senior Associate at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP joined CHEK News to discuss the suspension and the rights of non-unionized employees.

Interview Notes

• Consequences for union employees: Employees in a union must look to their representatives and agreement. “Any discipline Montgomery may or may not face is up to the firefighters union’s collective agreement,” said Balkaran.
• Terminating an employee “for cause”: Unlike a unionized environment, it is typically difficult to terminate non-unionized employees with cause. “I think in this particular situation, if he was an individual employee it would be very hard to terminate him for cause,” said Balkaran. “It doesn’t mean, again it depends on his collective bargaining agreement, it doesn’t mean they’re not going to impose some sort of discipline but the ultimate punishment of termination for cause would be very hard to make out in this situation.”

Related Resources

For further insights and discussions related to disciplinary action and terminations, explore the following resources:

• Fired for social media behaviour