Vindicated: Nunavut power worker wins $153,000 award
Nunavut court to QEC: you were in the wrong, pay up
The Qulliq Energy Corp.’s coffers will be nearly $153,000 lighter after today — Justice Paul Bychok of the Nunavut Court of Justice has ordered the power utility to pay a big damages award to ex-employee Chris Cousins, for breaching his employment contract by subjecting him to a constructive dismissal. (FILE PHOTO)
Chris Cousins, a former employee of the Qulliq Energy Corp., has been awarded nearly $153,000 after Justice Paul Bychok of the Nunavut Court of Justice found Cousins was the victim of a constructive dismissal by the territory’s power utility.
In a work environment that Bychok’s Feb. 3 decision called “extremely acrimonious if not poisonous,” the judge found QEC breached it’s employment contract with Cousins in January 2011.
That breach amounted to a constructive dismissal, Bychok said.
“By every objective measure, the breach of the employment contract by the employer constituted a substantial change in the parties’ employment relationship,” Bychok wrote in his decision.
“By January 2011, there was a total breakdown in trust and respect between the parties… It would have been manifestly unreasonable to expect anyone in [Cousin’s] position to continue his employment.”
A constructive dismissal occurs when an employee resigns because his or her employer creates a hostile work environment.
Bychok wrote that Cousins began working for QEC in 1995 as a trades helper and worked his way up to regional maintenance supervisor by 2005 — a position Cousins retained until his dismissal in 2011.
“By all accounts, his was a success story: a Nunavut Land Claims Agreement beneficiary who had succeeded in his profession despite being limited by a Grade 11 education,” Bychok wrote.
But from about 2008 onwards, Bychok said Cousins developed “an obsession” for what Cousins saw as QEC’s failure to implement Article 23 of the NLCA — the provision concerned with attaining Inuit representation in the Nunavut government’s workforce.
Between June 2010 and January 2011 Cousins was disciplined four times for what QEC called his persistent “lobbying” for that provision in the land claims agreement, the judgement said.
On Jan. 8, 2011, Cousins arrived unannounced with three fellow employees — all of them beneficiaries — at the home of Lorne Kusugak, then the minister responsible for the energy company.
The four QEC employees — who Kusugak later characterized as “trouble-makers that need to be dealt with” — complained to the minister about alleged racial discrimination within the ranks of the energy company.
“Within the QEC, these four employees had come to be known as the ‘four horsemen’,” Bychok wrote.
Six days later, the energy company’s brass handed Cousins a 30-day non-paid suspension, and required him to complete an anger-management course.
At the end of that 30-day suspension, Cousins was to be demoted to a non-supervisory role, if one could be found for him, receive a pay cut and be assessed monthly to determine if he was fit to return to a managerial position.
If no position could be found for Cousins, Bychok said the energy company was to lay Cousins off.
But Bychok pointed out that according to its own policies, the QEC could not hand out a suspension that lasted longer than 10 days, and had no right to demote Cousins or lay him off.
“On its face, the [suspension and demotion] of the plaintiff in January 2011 constituted a breach of the employment contract between the parties,” the judge concluded.
Bychok also commented that the labour relations leader charged with Cousins’ case — Francis Léger — showed a consistent “aggressive attitude” towards Cousins.
Labour relations personnel are supposed to remain neutral in workplace conflicts, representing neither the employer nor the employee.
And Bychok noted the director of human resources at the time, Catherine Cronin, believed Cousins approached MLAs with his complaints and spread “destructive propaganda” that created “a significant divide between Inuit and non-Inuit.”
A few months before Cousins’ dismissal, Bychok said the CEO of the energy company at the time, Peter Mackey, warned Cousins to stop bringing his political and philosophical views to the job.
Based on mitigating factors, Bychok awarded Cousins just over $150,000 — or 11 months’ salary — in compensation for the constructive dismissal, as well as nearly $2,800 for an educational upgrade Cousins completed while still a QEC employee.
The power company will also likely have to pay for expenses Cousins incurred by filing a lawsuit against his former employer.
Bychok said he expects to receive further written submissions from lawyers on those costs.
(0) Comments