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ELMER ATWOOD

Earl Gorrie started work-
ing for Galloway Lumber Co.
in 1952, working on various
jobs the last five years prior
to his dismissal as a Grader-
Operator. He had an excel-
lent record with the Com-
pany, never having been
warned nor disciplined by
any Supervisory official.

In 1961 an employee, R.
Bryant, was promoted
through the Bargaining Unit
to foreman. There seemed to

' be some personality clash be-

tween Gorrie and the new
foreman. Earl received very
little supervision from his
foreman and had to use his
mg discretion in doing his
job.

This caused a problem as
far as orders were concerned
to the extent that — on oc-
casion — he received orders
from three or four different
people, the manager, the sup-
erintendent, the logging fore-
man and the mill foreman.

It was not unusual for Earl
to give up his weekends, stat-
utory holidays, etc., in an ef-
fort to keep the road clear for
logging operations to resume,
or continue, without instruc-
tion from management.

HIS ORDERS

On Friday morning, Febru-
ary 2, 1962, the woods fore-
man took it upon himself to
instruct Earl to clear a log-
ging road on the following
Sunday. At that time Earl
pointed out that he should go
out on the Saturday rather
than wait until Sunday.

Earl went out to the job
at noon on Sunday as direct-
ed and found that the grader
had a flat tire, In his effort
to change the tire he broke a
small plate which resulted in
considerable loss of time be-
fore he was able to start grad-
ing the road.

The grader was approxi-
mately 15 miles from Gallo-
way and he had to make sev-
eral trips to and from the
grader. It took him and his
brother until 7 p.m. before
they were finally able to get

r in operation.
It was extremely cold on
night and as _ his

P imother had left he asked his

foremen for a helper so as
hot to be alone on the job.

The foreman denied him an
assistant and told him to start
up the road by himself, Earl

_ decided it would be very un-

safe wor on the slippery
orn a so he went to
rintendent, who gave

He was able to get the road
cleared of frozen mud, rock,
etc., except for one hill at the
far end where water had
frozen across the road mak-
ing it extremely dangerous
to climb with the slow mov-
ing grader. Added to this
there was no shoulder on the

‘road to prevent him from

slipping off in the darkness,
100 feet to the ground below.

According to evidence of
other employees who had ex-
perience in operating the
grader, Earl was very foolish
to even attempt the hill at
night, but in spite of the dang-
erous conditions he made
several attempts to get up the
hill in order to have the road
cleared for Monday morning.

It should be noted that the
temperature dropped to about
20 degrees below zero on the
Sunday night which added to
the problems of trying to
clear the road. Earl and his
Assistant worked continuous-
ly to 9:30 a.m, the following
day.

DISMISSAL

Approximately 10 am.
Monday morning, the fore-
man arrived in the logging
area and found that the crew
had been held up for 15 to 20
minutes in the morning. He
made a statement to one of
the truck drivers that there
was not enough room in the
Bull River Valley for Gorrie
and himself and sent word
down to Henry Nelson to the
effect that he would be com-
ing down to discuss the
question of Earl Gorrie.

On Tuesday morning the
foreman went to Earl at ap-
proximately 6 a.m. in camp,
and ordered him to pack his
gear and get to hell out, stat-
ing that he was through
working in Bull River. There
was no explanation given,
just a simple flat statement
that he was through,

Earl advised the foreman
that he had better have a
good reason for the dismissal
and then went down to See
the general manager, Henry
Nelson. He explained the sit-
uation to him and the man-
ager offered him a job in the
sawmill, operating a cat. Earl
stated that he didn’t think he
could take a job in the saw-
mill as it would involve other
peoples’ seniority rights, etc.,
and then stated he was going
to contact the Union.

Art Damstrom, President
of Local 1-405, met with the
superintendent, Max Gordon,
and Nelson on February 12,
1962.

THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

ARBITRATION

THE CASE OF THE FIRED WORKER

By ELMER ATWOOD

Financial Secretary, Local 1-405

The Company took the pos-
ition that Gorrie had refused
an order, and Gorrie was to
remain ‘fired.’ Every effort
was made at that time to re-
solve this grievance but the
woods superintendent, Max
Gordon, took the arrogant
position that he was in charge
and would be the one who
decided whether or not the
employee was justly dis-
missed.

All the way through the
grievance procedure and in
fact during the proceedings
leading up to the various
courts and eventually to ar-
bitration, the Company man-
ager Nelson showed a com-
plete lack of authority, leav-
ing important decisions to
subordinate Company offic-
ials.

It was also evident that the
manager had failed to:make
a proper inveStigation as to
the merits of the dismissal
and simply took the word of
the foreman who was very
jealous of his authority and
the fact that Earl had a cer-
tain amount of discretion as
to his working conditions.
There is little doubt that this
grievance and the subsequent
proceedings could have been
avoided if the manager had
exercised his authority and
made a proper investigation

on the merits of the dis-
charge.
GRIEVANCE

On February 21, 1962,

Damstrom notified Galloway
Lumber Co. of our intentions
to arbitrate the grievance of
Gorrie and stated in part
‘you will be notified shortly
the name and address of the
Union’s representative on the
arbitration board.’ On Febru-
ary 27, 1962, the Union ad-
vised Nelson that John Mc-
Niven had been chosen by
the Union.

It should also be noted that
there had been several tele-
phone conversations in an ef-
fort to resolve this problem.

The Company then turned
the grievance over to the legal
firm of Graham, Provenzano
& Graham, and the Union
was advised that in their
opinion, the grievance had
been abandoned. The matter
was then referred to the
Department of Labour in
Vancouver and on the 21st
day of June 1962, the La-
bour Relations Board deter-
mined that the grievance was
arbitratable and requested the
Company to appoint its mem-
ber on the board.

In spite of the fact that
the Department of Labour
had ruled the grievance was
arbitratable, the Company
neglected to appoint their
member to the board. On the
20th day of July, 1962, D. W.
Coton, Registrar, appointed
Mr. George Haddad to repre-
sent the Comany.

Following the appointment
of the nominee the Company
appealed the Board’s decision
to the Supreme Court of B.C.
and filed Notice of Motion
on the 16th day of October
1962. The application on the
part of the Company to set
aside the Board’s decision
was rejected by the Supreme
Court on February 19, 1963.
At this time the Union met
with the Company in an at-
tempt to resolve the griev-
ance pointing out that fur-
ther litigation would only in-
crease the damages and make
it more difficult to settle.

APPEAL COURT

The Company took the pos-
ition as in previous discus-
sions that we would have to
talk directly with their solicit-
ors. A short time later it was
learned that the Company
had placed the matter before
the Court of Appeal of Brit-
ish Columbia, and a decision
was handed down dismissing
the Appeal of the Company
on the lith day of March
1964, by the Hon. Justices
Davey, Shepherd and Whit-
aker.

At that time counsel for
the Union was H. E. Hutch-
eon, counsel for the Depart-
ment of Labour was A. W.
Mercer, and counsel for the
Company W. H. Heffernon;
and D. Jabour. Following the
decision of the Court of Ap-
peal, the matter was again
discussed with Company of-
ficials and the solicitor, but it
was impossible to effect a
settlement and eventually the
matter was referred to the
Supreme Court of Canada.
Peter Graham, acting on be-
half of Galloway Lumber Co.,
notified Clegg, Varcoe &
Lund on April 16, 1964, of
intentions to place the matter
before the Supreme Court.

HEARING

It should be pointed out
that the question before the
Supreme Court of Canada
was whether or not the De-
partment of Labour had acted
within its jurisdiction in ap-
pointing George Haddad as

ART DAMSTRON}

the Company nominee on the
Arbitration Board, and at no
time did it evolve around the
merits of the grievance. On
September 20, 1964, the case
went before the Supreme
Court of Canada.

The Local Union sent our
solicitor H. E. Hutcheon to
Ottawa for the purpose of
protecting the interests of the
Local Union and Ear! Gorrie,
and on the 8th day of Janu-
ary 1965 the Local Union was
notified by Mr. Hutcheon
that the Supreme Court of
Canada had dismissed the
Appeal of the Company by a
unanimous decision.

Following dismissal of the
Company’s appeal by the
Supreme Court, machinery
was put in motion to finally
arbitrate the grievance which
the Local Union had been
trying to do from the begin-
ning. During this time John
McNiven had been unable to
stand as chairman and Percy
Lawson, of Vancouver was
named to represent the Un-
ion. It was also necessary to
obtain a new chairman and
the parties agreed to Jack
Taggert, Vancouver. The
Board hearing was held in
Cranbrook May 13, 14, 1965.

EVIDENCE

The Local called five wit-
nesses — Earl Gorrie, his
brother Joe Gorrie, H. Nel-
son of Galloway, a_ truck
driver, Harry Jacobsen also a
truck driver, Gordon Peasley
a heel boom operator, and H.
Pelletier also a truck driver
at that time, who has since
left the employment of the
Company,

The Company called Henry
Nelson, manager, Max Gord-
on; superintendent, R. Bry-
ant, George Townsend, own-
er-operator, and three other
witnesses.

I feel a great deal of credit
should be given to our solicit-
or Jack Varcoe for doing an
extremely capable job of
breaking down the Com-
pany’s evidence.

The Foreman could not re-
member anything except
what he had been instructed
to remember. There was also
a great deal of confliction be-
tween the evidence of the
Company’s witnesses, and
this I believe had a definite
bearing on the Board’s de-
cision.

I feel that we should also
commend our own witnesses
for the way they conducted
themselves on the witness

See “ARBITRATION” — Page 8