Dismissal was excessive for a childcare worker’s inappropriate treatment of a child but it was serious enough to deserve a five-year unpaid suspension, an Ontario arbitrator has ruled.
“It’s still a pretty significant penalty – five years without pay – so I don’t see much of a distinction from termination of employment,” says Michael Horvat, a labour and employment lawyer at Aird & Berlis in Toronto. “Maybe we can imply that the worker didn’t impress the arbitrator with respect to even that one incident.”
The worker was a registered early childcare educator (RECE) at a City of Toronto daycare centre since 2008. In 2017, she was assigned to work in one of two preschool rooms, overseeing children between 2.5 and four years old.
