HomeMy WebLinkAboutPlouffe 08-08-11
IN THE MATTER OF AN ARBITRATION
t'l ~n 'H 5
f"i.)t';J I
BETWEEN:
GEORGIAN COLLEGE OF APPLIED
ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY
The College
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ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION
The Union
AND IN THE MATTER of the grievance of Suzanne Plouffe against a suspension.
Board of Arbitration:
1. G. Thorne, Chairman
John Podmore, College Nominee
Pamela Munt-Madill, Union Nominee
Appearance for the College:
Robert J. Atkinson, Counsel
Cathy Brown, Director, Human Resource Services
Joyce Goheen, Human Resources Consultant
Gabrielle Koopmans, Regional Campus Manager
Appearances for the Union:
Kirsten Agrell, Grievance Officer
Jillian Peacock, Local 349, President
Tony Podziemski, Local 349 Vice-President
Suzanne Plouffe, Grievor
A hearing in this matter took place on April 11 t\ November 8th and November 16th, 2007, and
on January 14th and 15t\ and March 20t\ 2008, at Barrie, Ontario.
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Award
On September 12th, 2006, the grievor, a Program Assistant at the College, was suspended for
five days without pay. The College's action followed a number of incidents and discussions
involving the grievor in the carrying out of her duties. Among other matters, those duties included
inputting to a computer system the registration of students in courses, the students' fees and other
information. The action most immediately followed an incident involving students on July 20th,
2006, and the grievor' s actions in subsequent weeks. The Union acknowledged a degree of culpable
conduct on the grievor's part but maintained that the suspension imposed on her was wrong in
principle and excessive in length. The College considered that the suspension was fully justified in
the circumstances.
A brief description of the organization of the College is necessary to an understanding of the
work of the area in which the grievor was employed.
The College has its main campus at the City of Barrie. Central administrative functions are
carried out there, notably, for this case, those of the Registrar's office. The College also has several
regional campuses, each administered by a Manager, which are responsible for delivering programs
and courses to students who live at a distance from Barrie. One of the regional campuses is at the
Town of Midland where the grievor was working at the time of the events in issue here.
At the time in question the Midland Campus catered to about 450 students enrolled in the in-
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school portion of their training in various skilled trades, in corporate training and in part-time
studies. The two largest part-time programs administered from Midland were Practical Nursing
(leading to the qualification of Registered Practical Nurse) with about 168 students, and Animal
Care with about 20 students. For the most part students in these programs attended classes off
campus. More particularly, students in Practical Nursing were drawn from seven locations at care
facilities in the Greater Toronto Area and attended classes at those locations. A number of them
were adults already in the workforce or returning to it. The Practical Nursing part-time students took
courses in sequence over a period of three to five years. A course typically was given in the evenings
and ran for several weeks. After a break of about a week students would move on to the next course.
Generally the students at a given location would move through their sequence of courses as a cohort.
The grievor was a Program Assistant at the Midland Campus, holding a full-time position
whose responsibilities were for part-time studies and corporate training. In fact in recent years the
administration of the Practical Nursing Program had taken up almost all of her time. She was the
main point of contact with the College for students in that program so far as administrative matters
were concerned. It was her responsibility to ensure that students entering the program provided the
proper documents to establish their qualification to do so. She would advise students about the
requirements for admission and about any upgrading of their qualifications which might be required
and would arrange College Placement Testing for eligible students. She coordinated the registration
progress and the collection of fees for each course. She was responsible for depositing payments for
fees and other payments to the College's bank account. She also coordinated the sale of textbooks
and materials for the courses. As well, she had contact with the instructors who delivered the
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courses at the several outside locations, for whom she administered the payroll and provided course
registration numbers and from whom she received marks for the students. These were only some
of her duties. Central to this case, however, were her functions in registering students, collecting and
recording fees, and recording marks. Timeliness in these latter functions was quite critical: an audit
of enrolment was conducted for each of the three semesters in the academic year; the result of each
audit had to be reported to the provincial government by a fixed date in order for the College to
receive grants based on the number of students enrolled; the grants would not take account of
students whose registrations were recorded late.
The grievor reported to the Manager of the Midland Campus, Gabrielle Koopmans, and she
had the assistance of other clerical staff members. Also involved in the Practical Nursing Program
was the Program Co-ordinator, or academic lead, Gayle Campbell; Ms. Campbell was not the
grievor's supervisor, however. The grievor had been employed at the College since October 1989,
and had worked at the Midland Campus throughout. She had been involved in the administration
of part-time programs in the years before the start of the Practical Nursing Program. She then took
on responsibility for that program, which began as one which led to a certificate and was modified,
in or about 2003, to a diploma program. Before she came to the College she had worked in offices,
at first in Quebec and later in Ontario, in a career which started in the early 1960s, doing
combinations of bookkeeping, payroll, accounts receivable and collections, sometimes with
considerable responsibility. As she described it, she had worked mainly on her own and was used
to taking initiative and making decisions.
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Information about students, their registrations, fee payments and marks was recorded in the
Banner System, which was the focus of a considerable amount of evidence at the hearing. The
system utilized software, installed in the fall of2003, to record student registrations, payments, and
marks. A variety of reports could be generated by Banner. Class lists, for example, could be
produced on the basis of registrations for each course. Faculty members had access to the system,
as did individual students so far as information relating to them was concerned. Those who were
up-to-date with registrations and payments could obtain unofficial transcripts of their courses and
marks attained, and could also request official receipts for income tax purposes. The Banner System
restricted the circumstances in which students could be registered for courses: certain courses
required a prerequisite - the passing of a particular course at the College or at another institution;
some courses had co-requisites, meaning that a student must be registered in two courses at the same
time in order to be able to take either of them; and a fundamental requirement was that a student
could not be registered in a course unless the fees for the course were first paid. An attempt to enter
a student in a course in Banner would not succeed if a required prerequisite, co-requisite or fee
payment was not in place. It was the policy of the College that a student who was not registered
would not be permitted to take a course. There was evidence that adjustments would, on occasion,
be made at a later time and that this had happened in cases arising at the Midland Campus. In a
variety of ways information might come to the College's attention that courses which a student had
taken in a previous term had not appeared on a transcript or receipt. Chiefly this appeared to occur
when a student had been in default of payment or lacked a pre- or co-requisite course. When the
information or payment lacking was provided, the student could be back-registered, i.e. registered
as of an earlier date than that on which the correction occurred.
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The Disciplinary Letter
The reasons for the College's action in suspending the grievor were set out in a letter to her
from Ms. Koopmans dated September 12th, 2006:
This letter is to advise you that the College has continuing concerns with your
performance as a Program Assistant at the Midland Campus.
As the Program Assistant, one of your responsibilities is the administration of the
part-time RPN Programme, including student registration, fee payment, entry of
marks, and serving students in a timely and competent manner. In my memorandum
to you dated April 4, 2006, I outlined several significant deficiencies in your work,
including:
- your failure to input registrations on the Banner system in a timely way, leading to the
College's loss of grant funding;
- your failure to input student fee payments or to deposit payments at the Bank in a
timely way;
- your failure to respond to student requests in a timely manner, and;
- your lack of organizational skills.
As a result of these deficiencies, your access to the Banner software programme was
taken away and clear expectations for you were set out in my April 4, 2006
memorandum to you.
On July 20,2006, 17 students from the Woodbridge location came to our office with
several complaints. Investigation of these complaints revealed, among other things,
that:
- in several instances, students had paid for and had taken courses but had never been
formally and appropriately registered; it is your responsibility to ensure that student
registration information is in order and appropriately tracked;
- in several instances, the students had paid for the courses but you had not ensured
that the appropriate supporting information could be entered in the College's system,
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with the result that the College information system had no formal record of these
payments;
- Several hundred dollars in cash and cheques representing student payments for fees
and supplies were found in your office; you had not make an attempt to have this
money deposited in the Bank, prior to this date;
- in many instances, students had taken several courses but had never paid the fees
for the courses, and;
- you did not deal appropriately, or in some cases at all, with students relating to these
Issues.
As a result of the foregoing, many of these students had been prejudiced in their
ability to register for further courses and to receive financial and tax credit for any fee
payments that they had made.
As a result ofthe complaints made by this group, I asked you several times to provide
me with a complete listing of every other group of our current RPN students. I asked
you to have this information ready for me upon my return from vacation which was
August 21. It was critical to have this information before the commencement of
classes on September 6. To date, you have submitted incomplete information for
only three (3) of the many RPN groups.
Another very serious and ongoing issue is that I have since discovered more cheques
and cash in your office and in the safe. You were unable to properly explain why this
money had not been properly recorded and deposited in the bank.
You have clearly not performed to the expectations set for you in my memorandum
to you of April 4, 2006 and in my several conversations with you. Your continued
poor performance and disregard for my instructions has caused the College
embarrassment as well as a further loss of grant money from the government. This
situation clearly cannot continue.
To bring home to you the seriousness of the situation, you are being suspended from
work without pay for five days. The suspension will be served from Wednesday,
September 13 up to and including Tuesday, September 19, 2006. In addition, upon
your return to work, the College will arrange for you to undergo further training in
the student registration processes.
Suzanne, this is your final warning. Please be advised that, if you are unable in the
future to demonstrate your ability and willingness to perform your job in a competent
and timely way, your employment with the College will be terminated for cause.
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Events Leading up to the Disciplinary Letter
There had been difficulties with the registration process for students in the Practical Nursing
Program at the Midland Campus, at least since the implementation of the Banner System. Cathy
Neuss, Associate Registrar of the College, whose responsibilities included the implementation of
registration policies at all campuses, testified about the types of difficulties which had arisen. There
had been complaints from students, as early as 2004, that they had taken courses in previous
semesters for which they had not received credit. Ms. Neuss's office would then take the matter up
with the grievor who would provide a list of students and missing course registrations and grades;
such lists would sometimes include particulars of other students in addition to those who had
complained. It was then necessary to adjust the students' records by back-registering them in the
missing courses and entering their fee payments and the marks they had received. Ms. Neuss stated
that the College was not having this problem at any other campus. Staffmembers from Ms. Neuss's
office had gone to Midland to train the grievor and Ms. Neuss herselflater did so in December 2005..
However the problems continued.
The grievor also gave evidence about her experience and difficulties with the Banner System.
Some of those difficulties had to do with the changeover from the system previously in use, but those
which are relevant to this arbitration concerned the registration of students in courses after the
changeover. One type of problem was a failure of payment following a student's registration in a
course. Despite the rule that a student could not be registered until the fee for a course had been
paid, it could happen that a student would pay by cheque, would be registered, and the cheque would
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then be returned for lack of sufficient funds. The grievor testified that in that event a hold would be
put on the student's account in Banner until the missing payment had been made. Ms. Neuss
described what happened in this way: the accounting department would notify the student ofthe NSF
cheque and the payment would have to be made before the student's next registration; in the
meantime the College's policy was that, at registration, the fee for a course must be paid or the
student could not take the course. The grievor' s experience was that most students would make good
the deficiency but that some continued not to do so. As will be seen, after Ms. Koopmans became
the Manager at Midland in 2005, staff at that campus were instructed not to accept cheques in
payment for fees so that the problem of NSF cheques was minimized even if it did not entirely
disappear.
The grievor described another type of difficulty which arose out of the fact that many ofthe
students in the Practical Nursing Program made payments and registered for courses at the place
where they took their classes rather than at the Midland campus. A "runner" was employed for this
purpose. That person would meet students at the various remote locations. The students would pay
their fees and would receive receipts which stated the amount paid, the date, and the course and
course number to which the payment related. After the runner returned to Midland, it would be
found that some of the forms of payment made were ineffective; in more recent times declined credit
cards seemed to be the main source of problems. Generally this was discovered quickly. The result
was that the affected student could not be registered in the course. However the student retained the
receipt. The grievor stated that she would contact the students in these cases to point out that they
were not entitled to attend classes until their fees were paid up, but that non-payment was a persistent
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problem with some students.
However a further problem then could occur: some of the students who had not paid their
fees and were not registered would attend classes in any case. Moreover they would receive marks
for their work in the courses. Instructors would submit these marks to the Midland campus but the
marks could not be entered on the data system because the students were not registered for the course
in question. Remarkably, some students were able to attend and receive marks for several courses
in succession - courses for which they were not registered.
The grievor' s evidence was that she would point out to the instructors that students who were
not registered should not be permitted to attend classes and, if they did attend, should not be given
marks. Some instructors, she said, took the position that their responsibility was to teach, not to
determine whether students had paid. The class lists were generated by Banner, and thus included
only students who were registered in the system. The grievor also testified about efforts she had
made to collect unpaid fees from students. She would sometimes phone them at home about this,
she said. The problem would come up for students who were in arrears every time a new course
started (approximately every two months). On these occasions she would tell students that they were
not entitled to attend class until they were paid up.
Although the courses taken and marks obtained in these circumstances could not be entered
in Banner, the grievor testified that she did keep her own records of students, courses taken, marks
attained and fees paid. When the students involved brought their payments up to date, she would
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forward the information to Ms. Neuss's office with a request that the students' records be adjusted -
and indeed on occasion this would happen only after an inquiry from Ms. Neuss following a
complaint by a student.
There were other cases in which students might attend classes without being registered in the
system. An example was the situation in which some students found themselves when they failed
to provide adequate proof of a pre-requisite course taken at another institution. One such student
was found to have taken and received marks for several courses even though she had not provided
proof that she had taken a prerequisite course in Chemistry at another college. The documents she
had sent in to the College did not provide the proof required and the grievor testified that she had
pointed this out to the student "over and over again". She also stated that she and Ms. Campbell had
both told the student that she was to either provide proof or take the chemistry course at the College.
Neither had occurred. The student continued to attend classes. The Registrar's Office became aware
of this matter after the incident of July 201\ 2006.
It does appear from the evidence before us, however, that the issue of students attending
classes while in default of payment was the greatest source of the need for later adjustments.
Another sort of problem arose on April lOth, 2006 when the Registrar's Office received an
angry call from a student about an official transcript which the College had sent on his behalf to five
other colleges. The transcript was lacking certain courses the student had taken and the marks he
had received for them. The grievor testified that the student in question had not paid the fees for the
1
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courses and that she had told him that he could not have a transcript until he paid. He did pay, in
February 2006, but the Registrar's Office did not become aware of this until Ms. Neuss e-mailed the
grievor to inquire on April 101\ following the student's call. It was then clarified that payment had
been made and the student was back-registered in the courses so that a complete transcript could be
issued. This was clearly an embarrassing situation for the College, which was put into the position
of having to apologize to the five colleges which had received the earlier transcript. The grievor
acknowledged at the hearing that the situation would not have arisen if she had notified the
Registrar's Office in February of the need for an adjustment.
The continuing requests for readjustments and back-registration were a great source of
concern for Ms. Neuss and her staff. Repeated efforts to train the grievor on Banner and repeated
instruction to her to "clean up" the registrations seemed to be ineffective. The need for readjustment
of student records kept recurring. It was disturbing that a complaint from a student was sometimes
the first indication to Ms. Neuss that an adjustment was needed. It was seen as a serious and costly
problem that the College had not received funding from the Province for students whose
registrations were recorded too late to be eligible.
A meeting was held in the spring of 2005 to review these matters with the grievor. Ms.
Neuss gave evidence about this meeting. She was present, as were Janet Arnett, the then-Manager
of the Midland Campus, Steve Lichty, the Director of Regional Campuses, Stephen Junkin, the
Registrar of the College, and the grievor. Ms. Neuss described the purpose of the meeting as being
a discussion of the ongoing adjustments that the Registrar's Office had been receiving, the loss of
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funding resulting from late registrations, the fact that registrations were not taking place, and that
payments were not being entered. Basically, she said, the grievor was being asked to clean up the
missing registrations once and for all. It was made clear, she said, that registrations must take place
at the time a student took a course and that payments must be posted at the time they were made.
The grievor also testified about the meeting, agreeing that these points were made. However she also
stated that she pointed out the problem posed by students who failed to make fee payments but
attended classes and obtained marks in any case. In this connection she named a particular student
from whom she could rarely get payments. Ms. Neuss, she said, had raised the possibility of having
the students register a week in advance, to which she had responded that the rules required the
students to finish the previous course before registering for the next. She mentioned a jocular remark
made by Mr. Junkin to the effect that a security guard might be sent to a classroom with the grievor
to remove a student who had not paid the fees. No one really had a solution, the grievor said.
Ms. Koopmans became the Manager of the Midland campus in September 2005. Early on
in her tenure she learned through a call from the Registrar's Office that there were issues about
student status and that a number of students had been seeking information on Banner, apparently
without success. However one of the largest issues that arose at that time came to her attention when
the grievor was on vacation in October 2005: it was found that about $4,000.00 in cash had been left
in an unlocked box in the grievor's office. Ms. Koopmans also noticed what she described as piles
of information on the grievor's desk, including cheques and student receipts in plain view. On the
grievor's return, Ms. Koopmans told her that it was not acceptable to keep cash on the campus. She
instructed her that, from then on, daily deposits were to be made to the bank and that any money
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which was not deposited - of which no more than $200.00 in student payments should be left on
campus - must be kept in the safe which was purchased as a result of this incident.
Ms. Koopmans felt that the grievor was finding Banner to be a challenge. She asked for
some training to be provided to the grievor and this took place in November 2005. This was not the
first such session for the grievor.
It should be noted that, in September and November, 2005, the grievor traveled to several
of the locations where classes were held to speak to the students to "reiterate about the money". She
told the students about the new policy that cheques would not be accepted, and told them to replace
any they had sent with other forms of payment such as money orders.
However there continued to be complaints from students, and some from instructors, about
inaccuracies in the registrations. Ms. Koopmans stated that she was then having almost daily
conversations with the Registrar's Office about these problems. She took advice from the Human
Resources Department about how she might act to bring about an improvement in the grievor's
performance.
In March 2006, the Registrar's Office withdrew the grievor's authority to enter student
registrations on Banner; she was permitted to continue to enter fee payments and marks.
On April 41\ Ms. Koopmans met with the grievor to give her a memo of the same date and
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to discuss it with her. The memo referred to the concerns that students' registrations, marks and
credentials were not being entered in a timely way. The memo also referred to frustrations
experienced by students and staff members in dealing with the grievor, to the need for her to function
as a member of the staff team, to the messy state of her office and to Ms. Koopmans' view that she
lacked organizational skills. Mention was made of Ms. Koopmans having learned, on March 91\ that
there was again a large sum of student registration money on campus - said to be close to $4,000.00.
It was not the College's position at the hearing that this memo was disciplinary in nature, but rather
that it was a clear statement of the College's expectations of the grievor The stated purpose of the
memo was to raise these concerns with the grievor with a view to working on resolving them. The
grievor stated at the hearing that the memo which was in evidence was not the document she had
received. She did agree that the matters mentioned in it might have been discussed. The board
accepts Ms. Koopmans' evidence that she in fact read the memo out to the grievor.
There was another development at about this time which should be noted. On May 17th,
2006, a student in the cohort taking classes at the Woodbridge location wrote a letter which she
addressed to Mary/Joanne; these individuals evidently were in an office of the college elsewhere than
Midland. The letter spoke of the student's frustration that the courses of her group were running
behind "due to outbreaks at facilities that we use". The student mentioned that the whole class was
frustrated. She also mentioned that certain credits that she had completed were not showing on her
transcript or on Banner. This letter prompted an e-mail from Ms. Campbell to a number of students.
The e-mail dealt with a number of topics. The portion that is most relevant to the matters in issue
here is a paragraph which points out that students who had found themselves locked out of Banner
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might be in that situation because their accounts were not current. Ms. Campbell referred to several
messages she had sent regarding the currency of accounts and also mentioned that the grievor had
called individuals and that some accounts were still not current, "... thus you are at risk of being
stopped in the program from continuing".
During May and June, Ms. Koopmans testified, she spoke with the grievor about how things
were going, receiving the impression from her that everything was being taken care of. The grievor
had expressed no concerns about how she had been doing her job.
The Events of July 20th, 2006
On this day, Ms. Koopmans was told by the grievor that a couple of students were going to
Barrie to pay up their fees. She had no other inkling of what was to follow. An excerpt from an
email from Lynn Cranney, a senior officer in Ms. Neuss's office, to Ms. Neuss and Mr. Junkin,
describes the situation which confronted staff at the Registrar's Office in Barrie:
We had 14 students arrive here today on a bus to get their registrations and transcripts
straightened out. Apparently they have been taking the practical nursing program in
Midland and are supposedly now ready to do their practicum. They have been told
that they cannot do practicum because they have not registered or paid for all their
courses.
Most of the students had receipts with them indicating payment for courses that have
not been registered in the system. Some were visa payments, some were cash etc.
Upon reviewing their transcripts they have not been registered for anything since the
winter of2005 and yet have been attending all along according to them.
I called Suzanne Plouffe in Midland to ask what was going on and she informed me
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that she would not discuss the matter with me over the phone. I told her that I had
14 people in the office and I needed her assistance. She said again that she was not
going to speak to me about it. I told her that I was calling her on behalf of the
registrar's office and I needed some answers. She refused to deal with me and hung
up....
The office in Barrie could not resolve the situation and the group, actually of 17 students, was
sent to the Midland campus.
At the hearing Ms. Koopmans recalled the occasion as a very stressful one. She still
remembered it vividly, describing it as" ... difficult, so tough." Members of her staff, who were
upset, informed her that a bus load of very upset students had come from the Woodbridge location,
having first visited the Registrar's Office and another office at the Barrie campus. She learned that
the students had been told, two days earlier, that they could not start their practicum, due to begin
in the very near future, because they owed fees. The students were asking to meet with her alone and
did not want the grievor to be present. Ms. Koopmans was obliged to ask them to wait until 5:00
p.rn. as she had to complete a series of scheduled interviews with other students. She then spoke
with the group until about 8:00 p.rn. The grievor and another staff member also stayed in the office
until that time. Ms. Koopmans agreed to meet the students again at Woodbridge on the following
Tuesday with Ms. Campbell and the grievor, and she did. In the intervening time there was a great
deal of communication between the Registrar's Office and the Midland office in an attempt to
determine what the students owed in fees and for which courses.
A great deal of evidence was presented at the hearing about the situations of individuals in
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the group of students. All but one of them did in fact owe money for unpaid fees, some for
substantial amounts. Most of them had in fact brought money with them on July 20th.
The grievor had her own perspective on the events of that day. The students had known of
the upcoming practicum since June, she said, and had known that they must pay their outstanding
fees. She had been in communication with almost all of them about the matter of money. Only one
of the students did not owe money for fees. She said that she had known they were coming on July
20th During the afternoon of that day she had had them into her office one at a time. All but one
of them paid what was owing on that occasion, she said. She was able to tell them what was due
from the records she herself maintained. However it is evident from the efforts that the grievor and
other staff members made over the ensuing days and weeks that the matter was not that simple. A
striking example of the problem they faced was the situation of a student who owed approximately
$7,000.00 and who ultimately paid what she owed; the interplay between what was on the system
and the figures in the grievor's own records was such that it was difficult to determine the precise
amount outstanding. While no other student had arrears as large as this, there were a number of
discrepancies which had to be followed up. It was frequently the case that the amounts paid did not
match what should have been owing for the courses for which students were in arrears. It took a
great deal of work on the part of all concerned before all of the students' records were in a
satisfactory state.
In her dealings with her after July 20t\ Ms. Koopmans felt that the grievor did not take the
matter as seriously as she should. At one point the grievor said that what had happened was a good
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thing, that now everything was on the table. It was the grievor' s expressed view that some students
would never pay what they owed until they were compelled to do so. The grievor expressed these
sentiments at the hearing. She had spoken to these students about the money they owed - it was
always the same ones, she said. Ms. Koopmans also found that the grievor expressed unwillingness
to work with staff members of the Registrar's Office, saying that they didn't understand what her
own office had to work with. Ms. Koopmans herself was distressed that the Midland office had not
been able to inform the students promptly about the state of their accounts or to provide them with
accurate information about what they owed and for which courses.
Ms. Koopmans was due to leave on July 28th for three weeks' vacation. She left instructions
for the grievor to work on the payments and transcripts of students so that they were correct,
especially those of the Woodbridge group but also those of the other five cohorts then in the
program. The grievor's evidence was that she undertook this work, but also continued to do her
regular work. Ms. Koopmans' expectation was that she would learn that all of the students were
registered and were appropriately on the class lists. When she returned, the grievor provided her
with printed class lists which she believed to have been produced by Banner. However on some of
the lists further names had been handwritten. The grievor, she said, had not done what was needed.
The grievor testified that the handwritten names were of students who, for one reason or another -
chiefly non-payment - could not be registered. It appears that Ms. Koopmans expected that students
who had been attending classes would by this time have been accurately informed about the amounts
they owed, would have paid them, and would have been back-registered; only then, as the board
understands it, could they have been listed on a class roster produced by Banner. This was a tall
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order in the circumstances. We will return to this aspect of the matter when determining the extent
to which the grievor should bear responsibility for it.
Ms. Koopmans stated that other cohorts than the Woodbridge group needed to be cleaned
up, that some students had recently come forward and that the matter was still ongoing at the time
of the hearing.
On her return from vacation, Ms. Koopmans had gone to the grievor' s office and had found
cash and uncancelled cheques there. This was contrary to the instructions that she had given that
prompt deposits must be made and that, in any case, money must be kept in the safe. At the hearing
the grievor acknowledged some laxness in this respect, saying that it was hard for her to change long-
standing habits. After her subsequent suspension, she said, she had been scrupulous about depositing
even small sums. The grievor also pointed out that any cheques on hand were there because she had
been instructed not to accept them; some, but not all of them, had been marked "void".
The College had prepared a summary of the amount of grant funding that was said to have
been lost because of the late registrations of the students who had come to the Midland Office on
July 20th. The total calculated was $37,855.39.
Ms. Koopmans said that the effect of this state of affairs on the College was huge. The most
senior administrators of the institution had been involved in discussions about how to deal with the
irregular situation of a number of students and the problems which had arisen, among them the
-21-
potential for lawsuits against the College by some students. Eventually, as of July 1"\ 2007, the
College had decided to transfer the entire Practical Nursing Program from the Midland campus to
Barrie. This action had a severe impact on Midland, of whose revenue about 60 percent had been
provided by the program.
Ms. Koopmans had kept in touch with the Human Resources Department since the time of
the incident on July 20th. She had hoped that the grievor's performance would improve but she
considered that it had not. Throughout this period she had found that the grievor could not give an
adequate rationale for the problems with student registrations. She felt that the grievor's attitude
had not changed: if there was any fault it was with Banner or the students. Ms. Koopmans took
account of the College's policy on workplace discipline, the grievor's service of 17 years and the
fact that she had no disciplinary record. Although the grievor had not received a warning, she
considered that a 5-day suspension seemed to fit the seriousness of the situation.
Submissions ofthe Parties
Counsel reviewed the evidence in some detail. For the College, Mr. Atkinson stressed the
grievor's unique responsibility for the administration ofthe Practical Nursing Program and noted her
agreement in cross-examination that she was the "gatekeeper" for the program. He summarized the
areas of the grievor's performance which the College saw as concerns: her general disorganization
as an administrator which resulted in her not always attending to detail and in her being in over her
-.
\
-22-
head; some serious problems with her management of funds, including a failure to input receipts on
Banner promptly and a failure to deposit cash and other funds which were left in her office; a failure
to use Banner appropriately to record registrations and other particulars relating to students; and a
lack of acceptance and accountability for her job. He also noted the results that the College saw as
flowing from these failures: students had been badly served and were justifiably upset; untimely
registrations had resulted in a loss of substantial amounts of grants from the government; and the
efforts and embarrassment it had cost the College to correct the situation.
Responding to questions about the degree of control the grievor may have had over students
who attended classes without having paid their fees, counsel argued that the grievor had a
responsibility which she had not fulfilled: she continued to let students take courses when they could
not be properly registered. It was not enough for her to say that she had told the instructors about
such students and counsel urged the board to be cautious about what he characterized as an attempt
by the grievor to shift the blame for this situation. The grievor had allowed the situation to snowball,
with the professors continuing to teach and submit marks for these students and the grievor
continuing to record these results, though not in the Banner system. If she was truly concerned about
the situation, he suggested, she had only to raise the issue with her supervisor. As it was the grievor
had failed to ask for solutions and had maintained a personal manual record which did not signal to
the College what was going on. The College could only react to the problems as it became aware
of them through the complaints of students.
Counsel referred to the College's disciplinary policy, observing that it contemplated a
,
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progressive approach while providing for advancing the process more rapidly in an appropriate case.
This was such a case, in his submission, and could be regarded as a light penalty in the
circumstances. He urged the board to find that there was cause for discipline and that the penalty
was within the range of reasonableness. In such a case deference should be accorded to
management's assessment. In this respect, he submitted, that the principle followed in Re Georgian
College of Applied Arts & Technology and Ontario Public Services Emplovees' Union, Local 350
(unreported, November 181\ 1993, Burkett) should be applied in this case.
For the Union, Ms. Agrell argued that the situation for which the grievor had been disciplined
involved factors beyond her control. The problems with registrations had been apparently from the
start of the Practical Nursing Program, she suggested, and the grievor had raised them repeatedly
with her superiors. Most of the problems originated in payment issues and had been dealt with for
some time by back-registering students after they had paid. No one, counsel argued, had suggested
taking a hard line with the students who took courses without having paid the fees. She also asserted
that the grievor had correctly applied the rules in dealing with cases of non-payment: if a student had
not paid the fees for a course, the student should not be registered. If students had then attended
classes in any event, that was not something the grievor could prevent although she had done all she
could to prevent it. These were structural problems, counsel suggested, and not of the grievor's
making.
Ms. Agrell also reviewed the College's discipline policy emphasizing its focus on progressive
discipline and on the correction of problems in work performance. The Union relied on several
"
-24-
awards with respect to the principles which were appropriate to a case of this sort: Re St. Lawrence
& Hudson Railway Co. and u.T.U (1999) 58 c.L.A.S. 223 (M. Picher); Re Canadian Broadcasting
Corp. and Canadian Media Guild (2002) 68 c.L.A.S. 104 (Ponak); Re Canadian Timken. Ltd. and
U.S.W.A Local 4906 (1990), 18 c.L.A.S. 435 (Watters); and Re Lethbridge (City) and C.U.P.E.,
Local 70 (1992), 28 C.L.A.S. 330 (Hepburn).
Decision
This dispute arises in the context of a recognition by the parties that the College must follow
a progressive approach to discipline. The College's approach has been formalized in a policy
entitled Work Place Discipline Practice and Procedure, adopted in 1979 and revised in 1988. The
rationale expressed in the policy could serve as a model for the basis of progressive discipline. In
view of the parties' reliance on aspects of the policy, it will be helpful to reproduce the rationale
here:
This practice and procedure seeks to provide guidelines for the fair, consistent and
predictable management of unsatisfactory employee job performance that has been identified
as justifying disciplinary action or termination. A progressive series of actions based upon
open communication with an employee from the time of recognition of a performance
problem will generally be followed, with each step in the procedure serving to increase the
employee's awareness of the need for improvement. Supervisors are encouraged to verbally
counsel and offer positive assistance to employees with performance problems, minimizing
the frequency of situations where formal disciplinary action is appropriate. Initial disciplinary
action may range from a written warning up to and including immediate termination,
depending upon the severity ofthe incident and/or performance problem (i.e. severe incidents
minimize the number of disciplinary steps taken). Collective Agreement and Terms and
Conditions of Employment provisions apply throughout.
-25-
The policy then sets out the conventional steps which will normally be followed when the
counselling stage has not resulted in improvement: a written warning, a formal suspension, and
termination. In the normal way the penalties will progress from one level to the next. In the case
of a suspension the policy provides, "if in the opinion in the supervisor the employee's actions or
performance cannot be justified, then suspension from work without pay from one to five days is
warranted". The policy also recognizes what is generally understood: a progressive approach does
not preclude omitting a step "... where a single incident of misconduct warrants a more serious
disciplinary response ...". The College maintains that its action in moving immediately to a
suspension was warranted by the seriousness of the grievor's conduct and indeed by more than a
single act of misconduct. The Union considers that the situation did not warrant more than a step
1 response and proposes a written warning and a performance review as a penalty more appropriate
to the circumstances.
The College's reasons for its actions can be examined against this background. Those reasons
are set out in the letter of September 12'\ 2006 and in Ms. Koopmans' expression of those reasons
in her testimony.
The letter begins with a reference to a memorandum sent to the grievor sent by Ms.
Koopmans on April 4'\ 2006. It is common ground between the parties that the April memorandum
was not disciplinary in nature. In the context of the College's policy the memorandum must be
regarded as counselling and positive assistance to the grievor. It should not, of course, be viewed
in retrospect as a sort of written warning which could itself justify moving straight to a suspension.
-26-
If a suspension was justified, it must be on the basis of matters, mentioned in the September letter,
which had arisen since April 4th. The board heard evidence about a number of incidents which
occurred in the earlier period. While those incidents may have been illustrative of the types of
problems and consequences which could arise in the registration process, they could not be the basis
of discipline in September.
Indeed it is clear that the arrival of 17 students from Woodbridge on July 20t\ and the follow-
up in which the grievor was involved, were what provoked the College's action. The testimony and
the documents in evidence about the events of that day show what a dramatic occasion it was. It
produced surprise at the extent of the problems with registration, embarrassment, strong feelings
between staff members, and the realization that students had been poorly served.
The letter of September 12th specified several areas in which the grievor was said to have
failed in her responsibilities. We shall deal with those points in the order in which they appeared
in the letter:
1. "In several instances, students had paid for and had taken courses but had never been formally
and appropriately registered". This is an important aspect of the matter. On the evidence almost all
of the 17 students owed money for unpaid fees. It was the case that students had not been registered
in courses for which they had not paid fees. This in itself was not inappropriate given the College's
requirement that fees must be paid at registration. What was not appropriate was that students had
attended classes and had received marks in those courses despite not having paid. There had been
-27-
instances of this well before July 2006. The College cannot have been unaware that that was the
case, and in this connection we accept the grievor's evidence that the matter was discussed in the
meeting which included several officials and herself in the spring of2005. We do not doubt that the
number of cases found following the July 20th incident was unexpected. The situation was not
helped by the weaknesses of the grievor's system of tracking unpaid fees: it was difficult for the
Registrar's Office to get a clear picture before July 20th of how many cases there were and how
serious they were; in the period after July 20th, it was difficult to ascertain exactly how much had
been paid and for which course.
With hindsight, the grievor might have taken the initiative to raise more forcefully with her
supervisors the problems caused by students participating in courses without paying fees or being
registered. However the grievor was not solely responsible. For the pattern that had developed,
organizational changes would be required to bring order to the situation.
2. "In several instances, the students had paid for the courses but you had not ensured that the
appropriate supporting information could be entered in the College's system ...". This allegation is
somewhat imprecise. Some of the evidence which might relate to it concerned incidents before July
20th. In any event it does not appear to be central to the discipline imposed on the grievor.
3. "Several hundred dollars in cash and cheques representing student payments for fees and
supplies were found in your office ...". This and an additional reference a few paragraphs later were
not the first instance of a practice which Ms. Koopmans had made clear was unacceptable from the
-28-
time of her arrival as manager. Her instructions had been clear and the grievor had not followed
them.
4. "In many instances, students had taken several courses but had never paid the fees for the
courses.. .". This was obviously the case. The comments at paragraph 1 also deal with this situation.
5. "Y ou did not deal appropriately... with students relating to these issues". There was some
evidence of discourtesy to students on the part of the grievor, some of it relating to the period before
July. This is not the most serious aspect of this case.
6. "... many of the students had been prejudiced in their ability to register for further courses
and to receive financial and tax credit for any fee payments that they had made". It appears that this
assertion relates, quite reasonably, to the delays which were encountered in verifying amounts and
other details once the students had paid up their arrears. As in the case of the circumstances which
had brought matters to this point, it is not appropriate to regard the grievor as solely responsible.
7. " ... I asked you several times to provide me with a complete listing of every other group of
our current RPN students...". What Ms. Koopmans expected was a printout from Banner of all
students appropriately registered in all groups in the Practical Nursing Program. Yet some students
could not be registered at this point and thus could not appear on a printout. It should also be borne
in mind that many students, perhaps the great majority, had paid their fees and had been
appropriately registered. So far as those who had been in arrears are concerned, we have already
-29-
commented on the difficulty the grievor's own tracking system had in clearing up their records.
Two paragraphs later the letter states, "Your continued poor performance and disregard for
my instructions has caused the College embarrassment as well as a further loss of grant money from
the government". The great majority of the late registrations among this group of students was the
result of the students' not having paid their fees on time. It is not possible to say how many of these
payments would have been made on time, and thus how many of the registrations would have been
in time to count towards the grant from the government, if there had been an insistence that students
would be barred from classes until their fees were paid. It is in any case not reasonable to suggest
that an employee at the grievor's level should bear the major responsibility for a loss which she
lacked the authority to prevent.
The grievor should be accountable for some of the matters raised in the letter of September
12th. The obvious one is her admitted failure to follow repeated instructions to deposit money
promptly and to lock undeposited money in the safe. Apart from that, however, the grievor was a
participant in a practice which had developed over time and which had not been dealt with
institutionally in a resolute way. The grievor did not communicate adequately to her superiors the
extent of the problem and did not work well with her co-workers in resolving it. Her own tracking
system did not provide accurate answers to those who were trying to sort out how much was owing
by each student. It is possible that an untidy office did not help matters.
The College's decision to suspend the grievor for five days must be considered in the context
-30-
of the process of progressive discipline which should guide its actions. After using the counselling
approach initially, the College decided that it was appropriate to omit the next step described in its
policy, namely a written warning. In the normal course one would expect this to be the first
indication to an employee that a situation is serious and that, as Section 1.1 of the policy indicates,
" ... this step is the beginning of a formal procedure which may lead to further disciplinary action...".
It is open to an employer to move immediately to greater discipline than a warning when serious
misconduct has occurred. Section 1.2 of the policy refers to this possibility. In taking this step,
however, one would expect an employer to give careful consideration to the objectives of corrective
discipline, in other words to gauge the weight of the penalty necessary to bring about a change in
performance. This should particularly be the case when the employee has lengthy service and no
record of discipline. It is striking that the College selected the maximum suspension indicated in the
policy (" ... suspension from work without pay from one to five days...": Section 1.2) and moreover
that it advised the grievor that this was her "final warning" and that termination was the next step
in prospect.
We have found that the grievor should bear some responsibility for the serious situation
which arose on and after July 20th for the reasons set out above. However in our view a suspension
of five days was not within the range of what was reasonable in the circumstances. The evidence
does not bear out that the grievor was wholly to blame in the manner described in the letter of
September 12th We order the College to substitute a suspension of one day in lieu of the penalty it
imposed and we further order that the grievor's disciplinary record in her file be amended
accordingly. The grievor is to be reimbursed for her financial loss for four of the five days for which
.
-31-
she was previously suspended.
\
The Union suggested that a performance review for the grievor would be an appropriate part
of the resolution of this matter. We are not persuaded that we should intervene in that way.
A_~
We retain jurisdiction to resolve any issue of compensation any aspect of the enforcement
. ^
of this award.
lJ t. ~c;Ci:'U"'"
Dated at Kingston, Ontario, this~ day of July 2008.
~-,
1. G. Thome, Chairman
I .eSBSl:lF.' dissent
I.
::)0,..'" q 0" C)n (l t. ~.
John Podmore, College Nominee
-'1>1~ A-TntCM~
I concur/.4isseftt
II n """ sJ ..
YA1"1aA \ 1\J.-l"l- ~1~\..
Pamela Munt-Madill, Union Nominee
. ~
DISSENT
In the matter of an Arbitration between Georgian College of Applied Arts
and Technology and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union acting on
behalf the Grievor, Suzanne Plouffe.
This Award captures, quite well, the circumstances leading to the Grievor's
suspension, from work without pay, for five days issued on September 12,
2006.
Where the writer disagrees, with the majority, is in the number of days of
suspension.
The action and indeed the lack of action as described, taken by the grievor,
caused considerable amounts of time on behalf of supervisors and senior
executives of the College in an attempt to correct all manner of college
records. There was the loss of Provincial funding. In addition the lack of
proper security of monies and the refusal to use the safe provided was a
most serious matter.
The most important aspect of this case involves the poor service supplied to
students, which is well documented.
The majority in this Award state" We have found that the Grievour should
bear some responsibility for the serious situation which arose on or after
July 20, for the reasons as set out above."
A one day suspension, I would suggest, is totally inadequate and I would not
have tampered with the five days imposed by the Employer.
Respectfully submitted,
..
V"'oHroI '1 d'i>noCL.~ "
John Pod more
August 8, 2008