Arbitrator Paula Knopf’s May 19th video surveillance decision is helpful to management on two points.
First, she validates the management need to investigate wrongdoing rather than immediately confront a suspected wrongdoer: “if the suspected employees had been confronted with the Employer’s suspicions in late April or May as the Union suggested, while that might have had an immediate, albeit temporary, deterrent effect, that would have prevented any real hope of discovering the true extent of the problem.”
Second, Arbitrator Knopf analyzed whether inadmissibility was an appropriate remedy for the employer’s breach (rather than ruling the evidence to be inadmissible as an automatic consequence of the breach).
Ottawa-Carleton District School Board v Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, District 25, 2015 CanLII 27389 (ON LA).
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