'If you want a more expansive definition, you have to go and negotiate it'

An Ontario arbitrator has provided some clarity after ruling the exact circumstances in which an employee is able to access paid sick leave during self-isolation due to COVID-19.

“Clearly a requirement to isolate in accordance with government-prescribed directives [and] guidelines does not constitute a form of an illness or disability that warrants coverage under a collective agreement,” says Irv Kleiner, partner employment and labour group at Torkin Manes in Toronto, in talking to Canadian HR Reporter.

“The [agreement] has no reference to illness and disability and within the meaning of the collective agreement, a requirement to isolate does not constitute a form of illness or disability.”

Background on dispute

The arbitration between the Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) and Humber River Hospital hinged upon whether a nurse was able to claim paid time off after being sent home to isolate by a public health order.

The ONA argued that when an employee is forced to remain home, this alone constituted sick-leave protection, even if the worker was asymptomatic and tested negative for the deadly disease.

But the hospital said those workers are not covered under the provision, unless they tested positive and showed symptoms of illness, in which case they are legitimately able to be compensated while off work.

The arbitrator, Norm Jesin, ruled in his Nov. 25 award that when nurses “are not at work in these...

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