THUNDER BAY -- An arbitrator has ordered Lakehead University to pay compensatory damages to a tenured professor whose employment was terminated five years ago.
However, he’s declined to require the professor’s reinstatement.
The decision follows 59 days of hearings spread over three years, from 2014 to 2017.
The arbitrator called the inquiry the longest he has conducted in more than 30 years as a labour relations adjudicator.
He also described it as one of the most difficult of his career.
“Having already lost focus and perspective even before the hearing began, it seems that the deeper they went into the litigation forest, the more everyone involved lost sight of the legally relevant trees,” he commented in a preface to his decision.
At issue was a series of disciplinary measures that started in 2012 when interpersonal conflict developed between the professor and other staff during the process of filling a faculty vacancy.
The discipline culminated in his termination for cause in 2013.
The Lakehead University Faculty Association (LUFA) filed grievances, saying none of the sanctions were justified, and seeking the professor’s reinstatement.
The university countered that it had just cause, but submitted that if the termination grievance was upheld, then the faculty member should not be reinstated because “the employment relationship has been damaged beyond repair.”
In the end, the arbitrator agreed that was the case.
Although he upheld a five-day suspension, he ruled that termination was “an excessive disciplinary penalty,” but chose not to order the professor’s reinstatement, on the basis that the workplace environment was poisoned.
“It is patently obvious that the grievor does not trust University Administration or Human Resources, and that the University does not trust him,” he noted in his ruling.
He left it up to the parties to determine the amount of damages to be paid to the professor, saying he will step in if they are unable to reach a settlement.
Neither Lakehead University nor the LU Faculty Association was prepared to comment on the case when contacted by Tbnewswatch.
