Sask. judge rules Regina refinery was justified firing 2 workers who wouldn't follow pandemic protocols

Dan Zakreski · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 01, 2025 7:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

A Saskatoon justice has ruled that Consumers' Co-operative Refineries Ltd. (CCRL) did not overstep erstwhile it fired 2 workers astatine its Regina works aft they refused to travel pandemic protocols.

Dallas Shuparski and Ward Rubin refused to comply with CCRL argumentation connected vaccination and investigating successful October 2021. They were fired successful January 2022.

The determination by Justice Richard Danyliuk overturns an arbitrator's determination that had ruled successful favour of the workers. Unifor Local 594 had successfully grieved their firing, past CCRL requested a judicial review.

Danyliuk released his determination connected March 5.

"Two employees were consenting to jeopardize the wellness and information of everyone other successful that workplace. Two employees were fixed aggregate chances to comply, aggregate warnings, aggregate stages of progressive discipline, and inactive insisted they were entitled to disobey a valid directive from their employer," Danyliuk wrote.

"Two employees were determined to support a people of behaviour that was untenable, that sowed chaos successful their workplace astatine a clip erstwhile 1 of the largest wellness threats successful caller representation was progressive successful this country, successful the world."

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In his 19-page Court of King's Bench decision, Danyliuk highlights what helium characterized arsenic flaws successful the arbitrator's analysis.

The arbitrator decided that CCRL did not equilibrium the competing interests of leader and employees, alternatively preferring its ain interests and failing to "properly relationship for the profound nonaccomplishment these employees would endure done termination." Also, the arbitrator ruled the terminations were premature, with a amended enactment being to spot the workers connected an unpaid permission of absence, Danyliuk wrote.

A important flaw, Danyliuk said, is that the arbitrator had noted that the CCRL argumentation was flexible compared with different companies. It did not request that workers get vaccinated. Rather, it gave a "soft option" of testing. All the workers had to bash was trial themselves doubly play and taxable the results.

Further, neither idiosyncratic provided immoderate bully crushed to garbage to comply, Danyliuk said.

Finally, helium wrote that by challenging the enforcement of the policy, the argumentation would besides travel nether attack. This shifted the absorption distant from the existent contented of whether the workers were unjustly fired.

"I admit employers request to beryllium tenable with their employees but the converse is besides true. Here, the people of enactment taken by Messrs. Rubin and Shuparski was unreasonable," Danyliuk wrote.

"It was a people destined to bring them to the constituent of termination."