A targeted “hit” on a Vancouver Letter Carrier has been overturned at arbitration. On February 19, 2010, Aaron Spires, Letter Carrier and CUPW Shop Steward, was discharged by Canada Post on the basis of allegations that he had fraudulently claimed one 
hour of overtime and several hours of sick leave to which he was not entitled. Those incidents allegedly took place on February 9 & 11, 2010. According to former Sea-to-Sky Manager Steven Sapinsky (son-in-law of former Canada Post manager Al Miller), Spires had displayed a “pattern” of claiming payment to which he was not entitled.
In his February 19, 2010 letter of discharge, Sapinsky claimed that Spires had not been targeted. In reality, Sapinsky had placed Spires’ name on a “hit list” shortly after Spires was assigned to the Capilano Delivery Center (CDC) in late December of 2009. Spires’ name was placed on the hit list because he had incurred overtime on several occasions while covering two of CDC’s least desirable routes. Sapinsky’s hit list was circulated amongst supervisory staff at the CDC and Spires immediately became a “person of interest”. Despite a discipline-free work history, Spires was discharged six weeks after being targeted.
At arbitration, Arbitrator Vince Ready considered the credibility of Canada Post’s witnesses in the context of the hit list and the events that transpired almost immediately thereafter. Those events included a “sloppy” recommendation for termination on the grounds of absenteeism by Supervisor Cassidy Towers (based largely on a WCB-approved absence) and two overtime investigations (one of which was covert) that failed to uncover any evidence of impropriety:
None of the above facts in and of themselves are determinative of the true nature of the events which transpired on February 9 and 11, but collectively they act as a prism through which the termination must be viewed, and are sufficient to give any adjudicator pause in his Employer credibility assessment.
In assessing the allegation of overtime fraud, Arbitrator Ready found Cassidy Towers’s evidence to be lacking; Towers was uncertain of what he observed while purporting to conduct an audit of certain CMBs on February 9, 2010 and could not explain his shifting accounts of the times he claimed to be conducting the audit and produced “inadequate” audit records. It was also noted that Towers agreed in cross-examination that Spires might have been delivering parcels elsewhere on his route at the time that Towers purported to have been conducting his audit and that no attempt had been made by Towers to determine whether or when those deliveries had been made. While finding Spires’ evidence to be preferred over Towers’, Arbitrator Ready noted that Towers was marching to the tune of Sapinsky’s edict to target “persons of interest”:
The evidentiary problems reviewed in the foregoing should not be laid entirely at the feet of Mr. Towers. He performed his audit under the clear direction and considerable, immediate and ongoing pressure of Manager Sapinsky to act on “employees of interest”. In so doing, Mr. Sapinsky created a climate fostering such rushes to judgment and failed in his responsibility to act as the sober second level of management consideration prior to termination.
In assessing the allegation of fraudulent sick leave which arose after Spires’ became ill during his shift of February 11, 2010, Arbitrator Ready considered and rejected Sapinsky’s yet to be patented ‘Red Face Theory’ (Sapinsky testified that he observed Spires’ complexion to be reddish after confronting him on the work floor as he was in the process of departing from the facility. On the basis of that observation, Sapinsky asserted that Spires was misrepresenting his claim of illness):
If I am asked to contradict the conclusion of the attending physician, a conclusion unshaken on cross-examination, I need more than Mr. Sapinsky’s layman’s assessment as to the grievor’s red face being evidence of misrepresentation of his ability to attend work.
In the result, the Corporation’s allegations were rejected. In his July 21, 2011 Award, Arbitrator Ready reinstated Aaron Spires to his employment as a Letter Carrier with an order that he be made whole in all respects.
In solidarity,
Ken Mooney