Arbitrator looks at altercation between paper mill worker, truck driver at J.D. Irving
An arbitrator has ordered the reinstatement of a New Brunswick paper mill worker fired for making harassing comments to an Israeli truck driver, ruling that while the conduct breached the employer’s harassment policy, dismissal went too far.
In UNIFOR, Local 523N v. Lake Utopia Paper, arbitrator Guy G. Couturier, held that Ethan Chamberlain should return to work at Lake Utopia Paper, a division of J.D. Irving, Limited, after serving a four‑month suspension without pay or benefits and completing sensitivity training.
Chamberlain, a shipper with about four years’ service, was dismissed on May 7, 2025 for allegedly violating the company’s Safe and Respectful Workplace Policy during an April 28, 2025 exchange with long‑haul driver Igor Marichev. Marichev, employed by affiliated carrier Sunbury Transport, is Jewish, originally from the former Soviet Union and raised in Israel.
From cordial relationship to contentious exchange
Both men testified they had known each other for roughly two years and previously had cordial conversations when Marichev picked up loads. On the day in question – also the date of the federal election – Marichev entered the shipping office while Chamberlain was eating lunch. A polyglass divider separated them; there was no recording of the interaction.
The discussion began with the election and moved quickly to Israel, Gaza, Zionism, Nazism, the killing of Jesus, and conspiracy theories including 9/11. Couturier accepted that the early part of the exchange was a mutually engaged, if poorly informed, conversation.
“The ‘tone’ of the conversation was, in the beginning civil, an interchange of opinions and views, interspersed by questions asked, centered around issues of the Jewish religion,” he wrote. “The conversation was engaged by these two men by mutual consent and willingly.”
Comments add up to workplace harassment
However, when Marichev tried to explain historical and political context, the tone shifted. Couturier found that Chamberlain became frustrated, raised his voice and crossed the line into workplace harassment.
The arbitrator accepted that Chamberlain told Marichev words to the effect: “If you don’t want to hear other people’s opinions, you can shut your mouth and fuck off.” Marichev testified: “What hurt me, when someone tells me to fuck off from here, a few times. That is what hurt me.”
Couturier concluded that this conduct met the definition of “workplace harassment” under New Brunswick’s Occupational Health and Safety Act General Regulation and the company’s code of practice.
“The Board is satisfied that the complainant’s health and safety was threatened by the comments, giving the definition of ‘harassment’ a fair, large and liberal interpretation,” he wrote, finding that the language “meets the definition of harassment, as intended in the policy.”
Despite widespread training initiatives, over half (61 per cent) of respondents to a previous survey said workplace harassment is “a growing issue” at their workplace and needs more attention.
Antisemitism allegations at work
The employer further alleged that Chamberlain compared Zionism to Nazism, claimed Jews killed Jesus and suggested Israel had advance knowledge of 9/11. It called on anti‑racism advocate Bernie Farber, who testified these were classic antisemitic tropes that align with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition, which New Brunswick endorsed in 2021.
Couturier accepted Farber as an expert and noted that “voice, tone and context are fundamental in identifying antisemitism.” But he focused his legal analysis on harassment, rather than making a definitive ruling on whether the conduct was antisemitic, and stressed that the case turned on the effect of the comments in the workplace.
The company also claimed Chamberlain refused to load Marichev’s truck and said he wanted the driver “to feel exactly what the Palestinians feel.” Chamberlain denied this. The arbitrator found the evidence inconsistent, pointing to shifting versions in Marichev’s text, email, investigation interview and testimony, and differing wording in the termination letter.
He drew an adverse inference from the employer’s failure to produce warehouse video or call the trainee who actually loaded the truck, and concluded the “Palestinians feel” remark was not proven.
Flawed investigation but just cause for discipline
The external investigator interviewed Marichev and Chamberlain but did not give Chamberlain a copy of the complaint, the text messages or a transcript of the complainant’s interview. Couturier found that, after an initial 17‑minute narrative, the investigator relied heavily on leading and suggestive questions and at times appeared to have accepted the complainant’s story in advance.
These flaws led the arbitrator to give “little weight” to much of the recorded interview, though he ultimately relied on the complainant’s initial account and the hearing testimony of both men.
Couturier held that Chamberlain gave just cause for “some form of discipline” by violating the harassment provisions, but that dismissal was “an excessive response.”
“The violation of the policy by the grievor... is not as minor or trivial as the union suggests, it is egregious and must be sanctioned accordingly. Nor is the violation as extreme as the employer proposes,” he wrote. “It does not warrant… the imposing of the limit, on the sanction spectrum… Thus, the termination of employment was, in this case, an excessive response by the Employer.”
Previously, a group of British Columbia teachers launched a human rights complaint against their union, claiming that the labour group “has engaged in and enabled antisemitism."
