Reasonable to Designate Millers and Their Assistants as First Aid Attendants

An employer chose the millers and millers assistants in its plant to be the designated first aid attendants for all employees as required by OHS law. Although these workers were willing to be the first aid attendants for their fellow millers and millers assistants, they objected to doing so for other workers. So the union filed a grievance, claiming the employer unreasonably exercised its management rights. It’s critical that first aid attendants be present when a worker needs medical help before an ambulance arrives. What distinguishes millers and millers assistants from other workers is that they’re always at the plant when they or other employees are working, noted the arbitrator. Thus, designating them as first aid attendants was ‘practically and operationally logical’ as well as reasonable, the arbitrator concluded [United Food and Commercial Workers’ Union, Local 1518 v. Rogers Foods Ltd. (Armstrong Plant First Aid Attendants Grievance), [2013] C.L.A.D. No. 329, Nov. 4, 2013].