OK to Fire Worker for Threatening to Bring a Gun to Work

A worker was upset at how a manager treated a co-worker. She told the manager that if the manager ever did that to her, she’d go home, get her boyfriend’s gun and bring it to the store (she was dating an RCMP officer at the time). The store fired her. And an arbitrator upheld this decision. The worker had a disciplinary record that showed she was assertive, used profanity and was disrespectful. She repeatedly denied ever making the threat. And in today’s climate where any threat is serious and given her disciplinary record, termination wasn’t excessive, concluded the arbitrator [Overwaitea Food Group v. United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 1518 (FS Grievance), [2012] B.C.C.A.A.A. No. 119, Sept. 5, 2012].