“Make up your mind that no matter what comes your way, no matter how unfair, you will do more than simply survive. You will thrive in-spite of it.” Joel Osteen.
All retaliation impacts many employees and is a serious issue for organizations not to mention very difficult to resolve. Retaliation rates are climbing and USA studies show 35% of employees fear retaliation. This impacts corporate culture, worker productivity and may ultimately lead to fines and enormous legal cost for all.
When Mr. Menagh tried to remove task from me I informed him that my settlement including every aspect of my job description. Mr. Fitzpatrick had not involved him in the settlement or shared the details but at this point I don’t think it mattered by this point he had been charged by the Ministry and he was very angry. He actually found out I was returning accidentally through payroll and told the staff that he was going to have me sit in my office and twittle my thumbs.
3. You’re Passed Over for a Promotion or RaiseÂ
4. Your Pay or Hours are Cut:Â Â In my case they could not cut my salary because of the settlement but they refused to evaluate the new EMS position through the normal Job Evaluation process. Should that position be rated higher than the HR position they would have had to placed me in that salary range and they were determined to block it indefinitely.
5. You Encounter Ongoing Harassment: It’s not uncommon to experience more harassment after filing a complaint. The City was certainly not the exception to that rule. The harassment was ongoing for years from the day I reported the Elder Abuse to the Ministry. From termination to the constant questioning everything and everyone I was working with.
Luckily, I had been trained years earlier by Hicks Morley to deal with Harassment complaints. This is the same law firm who defended the City for most of the Ministry trial. I automatically began to record every harassing encounter in emails and journals.
There are always certain moments one tends to remember more than others and Mr. Menagh standing in my doorway informing me, that I had better be right, if not I was very, very wrong was one of those moments. That was when I knew they would try fire me. I had sat on the Board of Directors of the Alzheimer Society for years, co chaired the first Elder Abuse Committee in SD&G, and worked in Long Term Care all of which made me familiar with this legislation.
Another incident occurred when a friend attended the Ministry trial and Mr. Fitzpatrick immediately after called her supervisor asking about her performance and minutes later called her directly and questioned her about our friendship.
Intimidation at its finest.
One day, prior to the trial while I was still in HR, Mr. Menagh, Ms. Derouchie, Ms. Landry met with Mr. Sanders by phone in Ms. Landry’s office next to mine. There was a lot of laughing going on for some reason.
Immediately following the meeting Mr. Menagh came straight to my office, his 6’2′ frame stood over me and stuck his finger in my face saying I have a sliver. Very bizarre behaviour. Either the pack mentality has taken over or he didn’t think Ms. Derouchie a competent nurse to look at his sliver?
At one point I had a supervisor cover his ears and say nananananan because he thought I was about to say something about the ongoing harassment and no one wants to get between Mr. Fitzpatrick and his target (me).
For years prior to the Elder Abuse incident the rumour mill had multiple stories about Mr. Fitzpatrick and Ms. Derouchie’s relationship. When employees brought stories of sightings of them to me I would actually defend Ms. Derouchie. I could understand why he might want this relationship but it was beyond me what she would get out of it other than power? It does however explain how and why the CAO would become involved in this issue which is well outside his area of expertise.
6. You’re Fired from Your Job:Â This one is pretty self-explanatory. My job was eliminated in 2009 due to lack of work. If that was the truth they would have offered me a normal severance package. By offering to top up my Long Term Disability (LTD) for one year given my 18 years of service was just another form of retaliation. Standard LTD policies including ours deduct all sources of income dollar for dollar which reducing the offer to 0. After I made Mr. Menagh aware of this issue, it took him months to get the LTD provider to change the policy and make it retroactive to cover me.
Now, Mr. Menagh had 8 years service and received 3 years severance and Ms. Derouchie 10 years got her 18 months. Both are unprecedented to this day.
 7. You’re Blacklisted:   The first week I returned to work in 2010 Mr. Menagh asked me to attend an Emergency Planning meeting in his place. I was the Alternate Emergency Planning Coordinator for years and always attended these meetings. In attendance was the CAO, the Mayor and Police Chief who don’t usually attend. After the meeting I spoke with the Emergency Planning Coordinator telling him how great it was the CAO and Mayor attended. He responded with “it’s a first”. Non verbal communication is 90% of all communications and I guess they were trying to tell me something.
After agreeing to take the position in EMS I was unable to get a council approved cell phone, lap top computer or credit card which was required to do my job. After months of requesting them I once again had to pay my lawyer to send a letter identifying the ongoing harassment. Mr. Fitzpatrick was in my office the next morning and stated that it was the Finance Manager (Ms. Adams) who was responsible for the delays and that he would take care of it.
8. Disciplinary Action is Taken:Â Shortly after I reported elder abuse to the Ministry my sister was removed from her position at GSDL. After she called me in tears, I called a supervisor and friend at GSDLÂ to see if she knew anything?
It was apparent she was uncomfortable with the conversation so I changed the subject. By this time I was being harassed on a daily basis for months and had not spoken to my sister about it because she worked there. Two weeks later I was called into Mr. Menagh’s office and he showed me a note written by that supervisor detailing our conversation.
I freely admitted it and he gave a written warning. I later had it removed. After Mr. Fitzpatrick went off on indefinite sick leave and a City wide email was sent out a friend called me to let me know. After the media reported it, the Manager at the time went to her and yelled that one of us went to the media and could be disciplined. Of course it was not true, but they never want the truth just someone to blame.
9. Denial of Benefits:Â Fortunately for me the Chief of EMS informed me that there was a policy related to court appearances and preparation for EMS which covered all lost time. Mr. Menagh apparently was unaware of this policy as well and called the Chief informing him I would have use vacation time for the Ministry preparation and the seven day trial. I think it is fair to say that Mr. Fitzpatrick, Mr. Menagh and Ms. Derouchie were not using vacation time. My lawyer had to resolve this issue as well.
At the end of the day no one can retaliated to this degree without CAO approval and support.
As they say “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Take care,
Diane Shay
Would it be safe to say our CITY HALL is a filthy swamp ? Your (Diane) case would make an outstanding movie, with the sex, money, power, etc, what a hit it would be ? The movie Premiere showing could be sponsored by Team Cornwall at their gala Annual Meeting ! It still amazes me that Councils have not examined these issues ? OMG, what a stupid question ? Waiting for October .
Hamilton, I like to think of city hall as a manure pit. There’s a lot there that just doesn’t smell right. It’s time to replace all of these ash clowns. We need a 5 person dream team with the following, Diane Shay, Greg Kielec, Michael O’Neil, and 2 others that I’ll name later, lol. I already have my 2 remaining choices. Their names might surprise a few. Btw I’m not one of them.
A lot of these sound so very familiar from my times with the federal PS. Sadly I don’t miss it one bit.
Pete some of those names have promise. Some don’t. The point is we need better leadership at City Hall and the question is why do those in our community who could lead refuse to put their names forward? Think about that one. As for Mr. Kielec, if you don’t walk the walk your talk is just that, talk. And if you can’t stand up to your wife you can’t stand up to the challenges that you’d face at City Hall.
Some may not want to deal with the constant B.S. that originates from the horseshoe or from senior city hall staff. Andre Rivette showed us how frustrating it can be during the strike. It’s fine to say change it. But if not enough change is done we are no further ahead to achieving our ultimate goal…taking back control of our city from the cliquesters.
Hugger Councilor Rivette only gave us a sliver, and not locally, but to the CBC, after two years of silence with no contract for the four locals. There was something really stinky about this entire process that emanates from both the CITY and CUPE. We may never truly know what really happened, but based on the utter lack of gratitude from CUPE to those that broke this there are many red flags.
Ya think?
IMHO there was a reason they remained out for 3 / 4 weeks. The money the city saved (between $800k and $1million) was able to be pumped back into the deal to pay for back pay, concessions, etc. It’s a tired, old tactic employed by employers and governments alike. A new attitude is needed in contract talks. Get away from confrontations and settle the damn deals.
That’s in interesting, if not jaded view. I’d be very sad if CUPE and the City conspired to that level Hugger.
I didn’t mean to imply CUPE was involved in keeping the employees out. The city is another story. That tactic has been used so many times by employers we’ve lost count. I don’t think there was a CUPE/city conspiracy. IMHO it was all the city’s doing and intention.
Jamie, I’d still give Greg Kielic a chance regardless, I know what you’re saying and partly agree but there are very little options to select from and the object is to get rid of what we presently have there now. Greg may not be everybody’s choice but some of his ideas may be worth listening to and give him a chance. I had mentioned other names to follow. My fourth choice is Rob Hockley.
Oops, sorry I meant Rob Hickley, I will select my fifth choice for a dream team to run for city council at another time
Pete ideas are useless if you don’t have the testicular fortitude to carry them out. Greg never recovered from being fired by le Journal. He lost his mojo.
Jamie, but still I’d rather have HIM on the team over anybody presently on council right now. Beck I’d rather have Korey Kennedy over anybody on today’s council.
So I named 4 people I’d like to build a dream team to run for city council as a team. And I initially did say a 5 people dream team. The final name for the team is an individual who knows the issues that the city taxpayers are concerned about such as taxes, waterfront, administration and such. That person is Jamie Gilcig.
lol, thank you for that vote of confidence Pete. Not sure I’d ever run again after last election. Hospital visit, jail, brutal abuse and total disregard of journalism by other media out of pettiness, and a community that didn’t call out the Chamber of Commerce for utter disregard for our Charter. We need to be a much more democratic and inclusive community before I’d run again. What I am doing right now is consulting with candidates separately from CFN in the region, and of course this newspaper will be endorsing any candidates in Cornwall who will clearly push through a Brampton 2.0 policy and clean house at City Hall of managers that are abusing their positions or simply ineffective. I think I, like many, simply would like to see this be a community where people can contribute and build businesses and lives without corruption,nepotism, and cronyism to the degree we see it sadly here in Cornwall.
I, too, would like to see a “Brampton 2.0 policy” happen here. After we drain the swamp of the monkeys around the horseshoe let’s make it a clean sweep of senior management who won’t / don’t go along with the new vision for the city.