In the April 26, 2016 edition of the Athabasca Advocate, we advocated for Municipal Affairs to come to the Town of Athabasca and inspect council issues.
One of the reasons we provided was a “fiasco” with town employee complaints. We wrote:
Last week, the Advocate called the department of Municipal Affairs and asked what advice they would have given town council. A representative told us that labour relations with respect to the CAO are not within the ministry’s scope.
“Talk to your HR people or your legal counsel.”
Any member of council could have phoned and received this information.
Human resources and legal services are there to protect all parties – the employer and all employees. Just because a complaint is filed does not mean it is true, but it needs to be addressed and should be done privately.
A year has passed. But based on the situation with the town’s now-former community peace officer, there are still major issues with the employee complaint process.
It does not matter hether it is a matter of current policies not being followed or the policies in place being inadequate. The Town of Athabasca’s council needs to re-evaluate its policies related to staffing.
This is the second time in the space of a year that personnel issues have boiled over into the pages of this newspaper. That’s a problem, no matter how you look at it.
People have a right to privacy. When filing a complaint or dealing with a personnel issue, it should remain as private as possible, both for benefit of the of the complainant and any people involved in the complaint.
The Town of Athabasca exists to provide services to its citizens. We elect officials to oversee those services, both directly and indirectly through the chief administrative officer. Those officials have a duty to provide policies and bylaws to ensure smooth functioning of the system.
The employee complaint process is obviously flawed and needs to be fixed, but council has had ample time to do this.
And so, as we have also said in the past, we sit here in anticipation of the municipal inspection report and what it has to say about the town administration and council.
