CUB 38611

''80. An appeal lies as of right to an umpire in the manner prescribed from any decision or order of a board of referees at the instance of the Commission, a claimant, an employer or an association of which the claimant or employer is a member, on the grounds that

By Exhibit l, the Commission denied benefits to the claimant "because you quit your job with Sorenson's House of Picture Framing Ltd. on October l4, l994, without just cause".

Ms. Hunt is a lady of thirty-nine years of age who has done many jobs over the course of the last few years; the thing that strikes me about the claimant is that she is always doing something and is never sitting around waiting for handouts from the Canadian taxpayer. Her documentation, see Exhibit 2-l, shows that she was a cashier with Revelstoke Home Centres in Edmonton for the period 1991 to 1994 and lost her position there when she was laid off. She says that in every job she has had she has always been laid-off and has never been fired. After she left Revelstoke Home Centres, she took a job with Sorenson's beginning work there on Tuesday, October 11, and felt revulsion at the dirty washrooms to which objection the employer blithely replied that other people had used the washrooms and had "survived". She only worked Tuesday, October 11, until Friday, October 14. She tried to talk to the manager but he was not there and she was unable to communicate with anybody else. She left her resignation letter under his door on Friday, October l 4. She therefore only worked four days.

In the meantime, she was working part-time for the Coliseum which I gather is a restaurant because she worked as a waitress and at nights. She managed to get a job with Hull's Foods as a cashier part-time; she had other part-time jobs.

She has been working full-time, I understand, at Centennial Food Services since October 1996, as an order desk clerk and as a receptionist. Ms. Bottcher stated that the Commission paid her benefits when she left her job at Revelstoke, did not pay her for the four days when she was at Sorenson's but paid her thereafter, Overpayments were made to her which amounted to about $3, 500.00. The evidence is a bit confusing but it seems that she started working at Hull's shortly after had left Sorenson's but she indicated that she always reported where she was working and she was able to receive benefits because she did not work sufficient hours or make sufficient money to be disqualified. She claims that she always filled in the necessary documentation so that the Commission would be appraised of her situation.

Ms. Bottcher states that the claimant's revulsion to dirty washrooms is not just cause for leaving her position and she did not give the job a proper trial. Ms. Hunt also said that she was supposed to be trained for this job but did not receive any training in that period. Ms. Bottcher states that Ms. Hunt did not seek reasonable alternatives prior to quitting after only four days.

I take a different position from that of the Commission and of the Board of Referees in this case. The Vice-President of Sorenson's in the communication at Exhibit 4 states that "bathrooms are cleaned every week", then went on to say "and are used by staff and clients who are all long time survivors". I find that the claimant quit because of the deplorable working conditions. This is not a Third World country and to me having dirty washrooms is a deplorable matter and is just cause for leaving.

Ms. Hunt strikes me as being the kind of person who is always working, she is not a skilled person but she does not sit around waiting for the Canadian taxpayers to support her. I am satisfied she was entitled to benefits, the Board of Referees has made an error of law and an error of fact and the appeal of the claimant is allowed.

Order accordingly.

A.H. HOLLINGWORTH

Umpire

TORONTO, Ontario
August 6, 1997