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CANADA Chaplains Lose Grievance in Hospital Bullying Case

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More than a year after hearings got under way, a labor arbitrator has ruled against a trio of chaplains who complained their boss, a priest at St. Boniface General Hospital (Winnipeg), bullied them.

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According to The Canadian Press, arbitrator Arne Peltz reported in his 140-page decision that the complaints of harassment and abuse “were entirely without merit.”
Peltz also commented the complainants, a non-denominational minister, a Roman Catholic nun and a priest, should ask Father Gerry Ward for forgiveness. (WCxKit)
He says Rev. Carlyle Murrell-Cole, Sister Jeannine Corbeil and Father Roland Lanoie should search their hearts and reflect deeply on the moral quality of their actions.
The three each sought a month off, $10,000 and disciplinary action for Ward, the director of spiritual care services at the hospital.
According to the trio, Ward verbally abused them, threatened to undermine their careers, and then labeled them as troublemakers.
“At the very least, these three chaplains owe the hospital and Father Ward a public apology,” Peltz concluded. “ After the unrelenting and unfair attack he has sustained, I hope Father Ward can forgive them.”
The chaplains are still employed in the spiritual care department.
In his decision, Peltz said their complaints were “frivolous and vexatious” and “blown out of proportion.”
Corbeil testified that Ward referred to the department as a “kindergarten” and a nuclear medicine specialist as “the lady who glows in the dark.”

She said Ward informed her that her large size intimidated a chaplain and her temper had others referring to her as Attila the Nun.

Lanoie questioned why he wasn’t getting his work schedule sent to him electronically anymore, and Ward informed him it was because Lanoie was rude to his assistant.
Ward’s assistant informed the hearing she didn’t know anything about it and that she hadn’t reported to Ward that Lanoie was rude to her.
After Murrell-Cole was elected as the chaplains’ union representative, he was removed from his long-held position as the psychiatric unit’s chaplain.
Murrell-Cole complained he was reassigned to a greater workload and a desk he had to share with other chaplains.

The hospital defended Ward, arguing the trio turned out to be unhappy employees resistant to change who challenged their boss’s authority.

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In 2008, they filed a grievance against Ward. The hospital’s head of human resources looked into their claims and brought in an outside consultant who said the chaplains were the problem, not their boss, the hospital’s lawyer Ken Maclean said during the hearings.
Ward walked into a “very troubled workplace . . . with problematic communication . . . He was hired to end that discord,” Maclean commented.
The labor arbitrator, who listened to the two sides over the course of a year, said in his award that Ward had his work cut out for him when he was brought on in 2005.
“The evidence revealed a picture of an exasperated (spiritual care) director who was facing intractable conflict including intemperate, sometimes insubordinate conduct by part of his staff,” Peltz wrote in his decision.
“The grievers were ungovernable but Ward and (human resources) persisted in efforts at counseling, coaching and mediation, rather than discipline.”
Still, Peltz ordered the hospital to pay $2,500 in compensation to Murrell-Cole after he was shuffled out of his position in the psych ward, his original position. Peltz said while the hospital was acting in good faith it was in violation of the grievance investigation process.

Author Rebecca Shafer, JD, President of Amaxx Risks Solutions, Inc. is a national expert in the field of workers compensation. She is a writer, speaker and website publisher. Her expertise is working with employers to reduce workers compensation costs, and her clients include airlines, healthcare, printing/publishing, pharmaceuticals, retail, hospitality and manufacturing.
Contact: [email protected] or 860-553-6604.

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©2010 Amaxx Risk Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. If you would like permission to reprint this material, contact [email protected].

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