In a decision from last May that just came to my attention, Arbitrator Stout ruled that a hospital’s policy that required all current employees to undertake vulnerable sector criminal record checks violated its nurses collective agreement.
Although British Columbia legislation supports periodic checks on vulnerable sector employees, the hospital’s policy was first of its kind in the Ontario hospital sector. Ontario employer’s have had difficulty justifying such checks. Arbitrator Picher’s comment about the distinction between pre-employment and in-employment checks in City of Ottawa is both authoritative and restrictive.
The person who presents himself or herself at the door of a business or other institution to be hired does so as a stranger. At that point the employer knows little or nothing about the person who is no more than a job applicant. In my view, the same cannot be said of an individual who has, for a significant period of time, been an employee under the supervision of management. The employment relationship presupposes a degree of ongoing, and arguably increasing, familiarity with the qualities and personality of the individual employee. The employer, through its managers and supervisors, is not without reasonable means to make an ongoing assessment of the fitness of the individual for continued employment, including such factors as his or her moral rectitude, to the extent that it can be determined from job performance, relationships with supervisors and other employees, and such other information as may incidentally come to the attention of the employer through the normal social exchanges that are common to most workplaces. On the whole, therefore, the extraordinary waiver of privacy which may be justified when a stranger is hired is substantially less compelling as applied to an employee with many months, or indeed many years, of service.
Mr. Picher did state that in-employment checks can be used for employees exercising “particularly sensitive functions.”
In this case, Arbitrator Stout held that the employer had not proven a “current problem” or “real risk.” Arbitrator Stout was also significantly influenced by the structural problem with vulnerable sector checks – i.e. they return sensitive “non-conviction information” for which employers generally have no need.
Rouge Valley Health System v Ontario Nurses’ Association, 2015 CanLII 24422 (ON LA).
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