Surprisingly, name tag policies have become the subject of
recent litigation and labour board decisions on the topic have been
hitting the news. However, the resulting
litigation still leaves room for debate. In the recent decision of
Prairie
North Health Region v Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local
5111, an arbitration board in Saskatchewan held that the
policy was an impermissible intrusion on employee privacy. However,
in a previous
decision of the Ontario Labour Relations Board, displaying last
names on police officer badges was deemed to be acceptable.
Why were name tags allowed in one instance but not another? One
of the key differences the arbitration board in Prairie
North described was that the Police Chief in Toronto performed
a risk assessment before implementing the policy, which was not
done in the case of the hospital workers. Moreover, police work is
an inherently risky profession, unlike health care workers.
