Fire station: Camaraderie doesn’t justify sexual harassment

A firefighter, president of the union, contested his dismissal after the following event: while climbing a staircase behind a management employee, he shoved a finger between the manager’s buttocks. The firefighter claimed that the workplace culture excused his act, but the City argued that it was a case of sexual harassment. The arbitrator found that the dismissal was justified despite the firefighter’s clean disciplinary file. The firefighter trivialized his action by pleading camaraderie in a fire station, showing that he had not grasped the seriousness and consequences of his misdeed. The arbitrator dismissed the union’s argument that the employee had not read the psychological harassment policy, stressing the following: “This is evidence that an employer does not need a policy forbidding psychological or sexual harassment for an employee to know that inserting a finger between a co-worker’s buttocks is forbidden.”

Syndicat des pompiers de Victoriaville and Ville de Victoriaville

2019 EXPT-1936, 2019 QCTA 453, Nathalie Massicotte