The Alliance of professional and technical staff of health and social services (APTS) union won a first round against the CISSS de la Côte-Nord in a whistleblower protection complaint at the Richelieu pavilion in Baie-Comeau.
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An arbitration panel dismissed the emails as evidence in the complaint between the APTS union and the CISSS de la Côte-Nord.
During the hearings, CISSS alleged that the union and some of its members shared confidential information with a journalist from the daily Le Devoir in March 2021, thereby jeopardizing their reputation and credibility in an article about problems in the Richelieu Pavilion, a Rehabilitation center for young people.
According to the union, management rather abused their power by emailing whistleblowers.
In his verdict last week, the arbitrator Jean-Yves Brière found that the employer had no serious and reasonable reason to search the e-mail inboxes of its employees for disclosed confidential information.
He wrote: “A person has a reasonable expectation that his employer cannot see his e-mail, especially when he goes to his union”.
The two parties will meet again before the arbitral tribunal in September and December to discuss the content of the dispute, namely the transfer of information deemed sensitive to the media.
The management of CISSS Côte-Nord said by email that they had read the judgment and could comment on it after analyzing it.