The employee was terminated for time theft after the employer found him sitting conspicuously in the break room during his shift. The employee was purposely refusing to do his job in protest over what he believed was the company’s refusal to to assign tasks compatible with his workplace restrictions. The union and the employer worked together and proposed a number of options over the course of several months allowing the employee to return to work with modified duties. The employee did not respond to the union when it presented the employer’s return to work offer. The employee then filed a duty of fair representation complaint alleging that the union failed to represent and advocate for him against the employer. He sought “full restoration of his health” along with damages, compensation for lost wages and additional legal costs. The Alberta Labour Relations Board found that just because the complainant didn’t agree with the union doesn’t mean the union breached its duties. The Board also commented on the union’s efforts to explain the impact of this situation on the employee’s work permit (he was a temporary foreign worker at the time) as well as how it handled translation of materials for the employee finding that the union’s conduct did not support a breach of the duty of fair representation. The Board also noted that it did not have the power under applicable legislation to grant the employee full restoration of his health even if a breach of the duty of fair representation had been found: Complainant v United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 401, 2025 ALRB 73

The Alberta Human Rights Tribunal upheld the Director’s decision to dismiss the employee’s human rights complaint finding that the matter had been more appropriately dealt with in another forum. In this case, the complainant alleged his contract was terminated because he was a Black man who spoke out against discrimination in the workplace. The respondent argued he was terminated due to issues with his performance. The complainant was represented by a union and grieved the termination. All of the complainant’s grievances were dismissed at arbitration. The Tribunal found that the issue of discrimination of the complainant arose from a unionized workplace and deferred to the arbitration process. Other aspects of the termination of the complainant’s contract were not addressed in arbitration, but the Director found (and the Tribunal confirmed) that these were merely bare allegations unsupported by any evidence. Because they had no reasonable prospect of success, these aspects of the complaint were dismissed: Wallace v The Bethany Group (Camrose) Foundation, 2025 AHRC 73 

The Alberta Court of King’s Bench upheld the employee’s termination for cause preferring the defendant’s witnesses’ evidence on key points related to the plaintiff’s misconduct despite there being no direct evidence giving rise to the alleged misconduct. The court, however, agreed with the plaintiff’s interpretation of the schedule to his employment agreement dealing with commissions. While it may have been the intent of the defendant to only pay commissions to salespeople who complete each of the three stages of the sale, the court found that this is not what the schedule said. Based on a strict interpretation of the defendant’s own commission schedule, the plaintiff was owed substantial unpaid commissions despite his for cause termination. Finally, the court agreed with the plaintiff that he had been shorted vacation pay on his commissions. The defendant argued that vacation pay was included in the commissions paid to the plaintiff. However, it was noted that commissions payable to salespeople did not increase as they obtained greater vacation entitlements leading the court to conclude that the intention of the agreement was for vacation pay to be paid in addition to commissions: Dell v Brookfield Residential (Alberta) LP, 2025 ABKB 403