He thought the rulebook was a guide, not a master. The tribunal saw it differently
A school bus driver caught on video steering with one hand while holding his cellphone figured the rulebook was a guide, not a master. An Ontario tribunal disagreed, ruling the repeat offence cost him any right to termination or severance pay.
The Ontario Labour Relations Board released its decision on May 15, 2026, with Vice-Chair Roslyn McGilvery dismissing the driver's application. The former spare driver had asked the board to overturn an employment standards officer's refusal to order Stock Transportation Ltd. to pay termination and severance after more than 11 years on the job.
A phone in hand, twice
Stock Transportation provides school bus services to school boards across Ontario and employs several thousand drivers in the province, including roughly 290 to 300 at the Toronto West office where the worker was based. He had driven there since October 2012, working as a spare driver who covered other drivers' routes when they were off sick or on vacation.
There was no dispute about what got him fired. On Feb. 13, 2024, the bus's onboard LYTX camera, which starts recording when it senses events like a sharp turn or hard braking, captured him driving with his phone in his hand. The safety and training supervisor reviewed the footage and met with him the next day, Feb. 14, 2024, to end his employment.
It was not the first time. A year earlier, on Feb. 21, 2023, the company had handed him a final written warning after the same camera caught him holding his phone behind the wheel. He signed it, acknowledging the discipline and the caution that any further misconduct could cost him his job.
The rulebook and the road
The company's employee handbook, updated and redistributed to drivers every year, barred them from using a cellphone while operating a bus and listed the conduct among serious offences that could trigger immediate termination for cause. The policy was reviewed at the annual start-of-year meeting, and the worker had signed an acknowledgment of receipt in September 2023.
Reminders came from the top, too. The general manager periodically emailed drivers about the rule, and in September 2023 told them a driver had recently been let go for holding a phone while operating a bus. The safety and training supervisor testified that safety was central because the company was not a regular transport operator but one carrying children.
The company also pointed to provincial law. The Highway Traffic Act prohibits anyone from driving while holding a hand-held wireless device, and there was no dispute the worker was on a public highway when the incident occurred.
A guide, not a master
The worker pushed back. He testified that steering with one hand was a "common occurrence" that all drivers did routinely, that his driving would be unsafe only if it produced some visible disturbance such as rocking, and that as a spare driver unfamiliar with his routes he should be free to use his phone. Pressed on his duty to obey the law, he said there was a "caveat."
He explained that "your Employee Handbook is intended to be your guide, not your master, and I think the Highway Traffic Act is intended to be your guide and not your master." He acknowledged, though, that he knew the policy, knew the law, and had held his phone anyway after receiving a final warning.
McGilvery did not accept those arguments. She found the company had proven wilful misconduct that was neither trivial nor condoned, rejecting the position that a spare driver's role or the law itself could be selectively obeyed. "He therefore violated the Company's rule in a conscious and deliberate fashion and heedless of the inevitable consequence," she wrote. The application was dismissed, leaving him without termination or severance pay.
See Michael Glatt v Stock Transportation Ltd., 2026 CanLII 55418 (ON LRB)
