‘Progressive discipline may not be possible in all safety-related matters,’ says lawyer
When it comes to safety-sensitive workplaces, Canadian HR professionals are often at the crossroads of competing obligations: upholding discipline, respecting collective agreement sunset clauses, and ensuring public and employee safety. A British Columbia company successfully navigated that balance when an arbitrator recently dismissed a worker’s challenge of his firing for a safety infraction.
The worker was a truck driver for SYSCO Canada, a food service distributor based in Mississauga, Ont., at one of the company’s BC facilities. SYSCO terminated the worker’s employment in June 2025 for failing to stop at a stop sign in an industrial park the previous month — a violation that was captured by cameras in the truck he was driving. It wasn’t his first safety infraction — his record included a written warning in August 2023 for failing to stop at a traffic light and a two-day suspension with a final written warning in June 2024 for a similar offense and excessive speed.
When questioned about the incident, the worker initially said that he couldn’t recall the incident but believed he had stopped, saying that “I stop every time” and “I follow the rules.” He later acknowledged, upon being presented with video evidence from his vehicle, that he couldn’t deny running the stop sign. The worker expressed regret for his actions but couldn’t explain why he failed to stop.
Richard Johnson, a...
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