An arbitrator concluded that nine Ontario nurses who were fired because they didn’t get two COVID-19 vaccinations should be given their jobs back, finding their termination to be “unreasonable”.
The workers were fired by their employers, Quinte Health, for violating their employers’ vaccination policy.
Arbitrator James Hayes noted that, under Quinte’s policy, employees and physicians who did not submit proof of at least one dose of a two-dose vaccination series or did not have an approved exemption by Oct. 1, 2021, were placed on an unpaid leave until proof was provided, or alternatively, for a maximum of 14 days. The same requirements applied for a second dose by Oct. 31, 2021.
The vaccination policy also noted that “all options [would be] considered to effectively enforce the policy including unpaid leaves of absence, altering of employment status, termination of employment, and temporary or permanent loss of privileges for credentialed staff”.
The initial vaccine mandate was “well motivated, driven as it was by genuine safety concerns,” said Hayes in his decision on Quinte Health v Ontario Nurses Association, 2024 CanLII 14991.
However, the nurses “should have been placed on unpaid leaves of absence,” he said.
That would have allowed them to return to their jobs in case there were changes to the vaccination policy or their vaccination status.
The terminations meant the RNs had a “misconduct” for lack of compliance, which made it difficult for them to get a new nursing job. And because they were fired they would not be able to collect unemployment insurance or other support payments, he noted, according to a CTV News report.
In December 2023, a judge ruled that unpaid leave for vaccination refusal is not constructive dismissal.
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