When is an Employer Justified in Firing an Employee for Just Cause?

Consider these facts.  A manufacturing plant in Ontario where a worker was killed on the job several years earlier had strict health and safety rules that prohibited reporting to work under the influence of drugs or alcohol. An employee who operated the control panel of heavy machinery in the plant that required his full attention and senses smoked cannabis at lunch.

 Given these facts, you probably assume, as did I, that the employer would be justified in firing the employee for cause. However, an arbitrator found that even though the employee broke the plant’s rule against “reporting to work under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicants,” and that the employee operated the machinery after he returned to work following his lunch break the arbitrator was unable to conclude that discharge was warranted in the circumstances and he ordered that the employee be reinstated with pay.

To say that this is a head scratching decision is an understatement. What else is the employer to do in this case?  A decision like this just underscores how difficult it is to terminate an employee for cause.