A Vernon truck driver and two from Penticton who were fired over various misconducts have gotten their jobs back, with B.C.’s labour regulator saying their employer had anti-union motives when it fired them. 

Vernon’s Matt Bramall and Penticton’s Jamie Stevenson and Joshua Buhnai all had their employment terminated by Gordon Food Service Canada — where they each had worked as delivery drivers for at least two decades — within a two-week period from late December 2023 to early January 2024. 

However, in a Sept. 25 decision, the BC Labour Relations Board ordered Gordon Food Service to reinstate the three drivers, on the basis that the food distribution company had fired them in part because they were supporters of an effort to unionize.

Teamsters Local Union No. 31 represents the truck drivers, and the board found that Gordon Food Service was aware of the union’s organizing efforts in the Okanagan in the summer of 2023, months before the drivers were fired. 

According to the decision, the three delivery drivers had become inside organizers for the union in August 2021, with their activities at that time involving speaking to coworkers about unionizing, distributing information and collecting membership cards and submitting them to the union. 

In the spring of 2023, the company switched its fleet from manual transmission trucks to automatic trucks that have a “suite” of safety features, including safety sensors that beep, flash lights or automatically apply the truck’s brakes depending on the situation, according to the decision. 

The decision said Bramall had issues with the safety sensors, “such as the brakes being applied unexpectedly and without warning, and issues with the sensor lights shining in his mirror and making it difficult for him to see.”

Bramall testified that he had raised the issues with his supervisor a few times and asked to have his old truck back. His supervisor told him “it is what it is.”

Sometime that summer, Bramall began unplugging the safety sensors. The company found out about it in December, at which point Bramall admitted to disconnecting the sensors. Bramall told management that he believed the sensors were “more dangerous than helpful” and said the “constant bombardment” from the alarm systems had impacted his mental health, leading him to unplug the systems out of anger and frustration, according to the decision. 

Bramall was fired on Jan. 2, 2024, for unplugging the safety system. 

His termination came roughly two weeks before Stevenson and Buhnai were fired at the Penticton yard, both with regards to a boot allowance program that Gordon Food Service said they took advantage of. Stevenson had testified that he did not understand the company’s boot allowance program and at the time he did not think he was doing anything wrong.

Meanwhile, the employer noted Buhnai was “belligerant” when asked for a statement regarding the boot allowance and terminated him on that basis. Buhnai testified that he had directed strong language towards his superiors because he was in shock at being fired six days before Christmas. 

The Teamsters, Local Union No. 31 argued that the company had fired all three drivers based in some part on anti-union animus and with the intent to “quash ongoing unionization efforts.” It said a unionizing campaign was in process at the Vernon and Penticton delivery yards around the time the company fired the drivers, who were all engaged in efforts to unionize their workplaces. 

Gordon Food Service argued it had proper cause to fire the Penticton drivers and that Bramall’s disabling of the safety sensors was a “serious safety breach.” The company also said it had no knowledge of the union’s organizing campaign at the Penticton or Vernon yards, or the fired drivers’ involvement in any of the unionizing efforts.

But the board ultimately sided with the union and the drivers.

The board said it does “not accept the employer’s evidence that it was not aware of the organizing campaign at the Penticton and Vernon yards,” as the union had by then gone public with its campaign with a Delta warehouse, the employer was following the union’s social media accounts, and the company’s transportation supervisor was attending management meetings to discuss the union’s organizing efforts.

The board also found it was “more likely than not” that Gordon Food Service knew the drivers were union supporters.

It said the decision to terminate the three drivers was a “disproportionate” measure given the misconduct that took place. 

“The employer did not have a credible reason free from anti-union motivation to impose the discipline,” the board said.

The board ultimately ordered Gordon Food Service to rehire the fired drivers and compensate them for lost wages. 

The board also ordered the company to hold an hour-long meeting between the union and its Penticton and Vernon employees at the employer’s expense, during work time and without management present.