:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to appear before you today as part of its study on sexual harassment in the federal workplace. I recognize the importance of preventing and dealing with sexual harassment situations, among other types of harassment, and I commend the committee for its work.
As you have already mentioned, with me this morning is Denise Benoit, Director of Corporate Management.
[English]
To provide some context, I am going to start with some background information about the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. Then I will review the policies we have put in place to prevent and deal with harassment, including sexual harassment. I have provided the committee with copies of those policies. I will also outline the legal framework within which my office operates. I will end my opening statement with a brief look ahead.
My office was created under the Federal Accountability Act. The part that relates to my office, the Conflict of Interest Act, came into effect in July 2007, the same time that I was appointed Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. My office replaced the office of the Ethics Commissioner, one of its several predecessors.
Along with the Senate, the House of Commons, and the Library of Parliament, my office is part of the parliamentary infrastructure. The commissioner is an officer of Parliament who is appointed under the Parliament of Canada Act, so my office is totally separate from the public service and is not subject to Treasury Board policies. We are a small organization with a staff of 50.
During the more than five years that I have been commissioner, there has been no formal complaint of harassment in my office. There was one formal complaint submitted in July 2007, the very month I was appointed, the very week I was appointed, and it was quickly and successfully resolved. That case highlighted for me the need to strengthen my office's ability to prevent and deal with harassment and thus served as an impetus for developing an effective policy framework in this important area. Since that time we've received no harassment complaints, whether formal or informal.
Although, as I have noted, my office and its employees are not subject to Treasury Board policies, in developing the framework we drew on best practices used in the public service, as well as those used in the House of Commons administration.
As I mentioned, my office has its own terms and conditions of employment. Given that employees are non-unionized, that document performs a function similar to that of a collective agreement in a unionized workplace. Our terms and conditions of employment became effective in 2004 under the previous jurisdiction, with the establishment of the former office of the Ethics Commissioner and were revised in 2009 and again last year to reflect our current structure and work environment. They clearly recognize the right of employees to work in an environment free from any form of harassment and state unequivocally that harassment and abuse of authority will not be tolerated.
Our terms and conditions of employment also empower employees who believe that they have been harassed to seek redress through the procedures established in our “Policy on Prevention and Resolution of Harassment in the Workplace”. That policy reiterates employees' right to work in an environment free of harassment and articulates their right to be treated with respect and dignity, as well as their duty to treat others the same way.
It sets out a working definition of harassment, supported by concrete examples of what generally constitutes harassment, including sexual harassment and abuse of authority. It addresses prevention by providing for training. When the policy was introduced in 2010, we undertook an office-wide training session. As well, copies of the policy are given to anyone who joins the office.
The policy establishes confidential informal and formal resolution processes that employees who believe they have been harassed can follow and provides for mediation.
Steps in the informal process range from self-regulation, obtained by addressing the matter directly with the alleged harasser, to resolution through an expert resource.
The formal process, which is triggered by a written complaint, is coordinated by the director of corporate management, and may include conducting an investigation. Mediation by a neutral party can be used at any time in either the informal or formal resolution processes.
The policy also identifies various corrective and disciplinary actions ranging from oral reprimands to dismissal. Such actions may be taken not only against harassers, but also against managers who are aware of harassment but fail to act, anyone who hinders the resolution of a complaint through threats, intimidation or retaliation, and anyone who files a frivolous complaint.
The policy on prevention and resolution of harassment in the workplace is supported by the policy on discipline and its related guidelines, which took effect in March 2011, and the delegation of human resources management authorities.
Last April, after an extensive consultation process, my office issued a code of values and standards of conduct that all employees are required to read and sign when they join the office and again each year. In addition to underscoring the key values of the office, the code sets out expectations for behaviours in all activities performed by the organization.
To support our values, we went beyond general statements and identified behaviours that are specifically encouraged and those that are specifically prohibited. In support of the value of respect for people, the code recognizes employees' duty to help create and maintain a workplace that is free from harassment and discrimination and specifically prohibits behaviours related to the harassment of an employee with actions or words.
My office also has in place several non-policy tools that, I believe, may also contribute to preventing and resolving harassment issues. The joint labour relations committee manages labour management issues and undertakes employee consultation. Along with our human resources team, it has played an important role in policy development within our office. We also have an electronic suggestion box that employees can use to raise issues and concerns anonymously. We always answer those, incidentally, electronically as well.
We recognize the importance of providing adequate resources to implement our policy framework, and are prepared to do so to resolve any cases of harassment that may occur. As I have noted, there are various processes that employees who believe they have been harassed can follow.
While we will try to resolve harassment cases through internal mechanisms first, we will contract with someone from the outside if needed. The employees involved must have confidence that they're being treated impartially and fairly, and because we are a small organization we may sometimes have to engage external assistance in order to give them that assurance.
I'm confident of the effectiveness of the policy framework that my office has developed for preventing and resolving harassment, including sexual harassment. However, employees also have recourse to several other mechanisms. Employees of my office are unrepresented. Terms and conditions of employment establish the work conditions affecting them.
Under the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, employees can use the internal grievance process if they are not satisfied with the resolution of a harassment complaint. This type of grievance cannot be referred for adjudication to the Public Service Staff Relations Board. If employees are not satisfied with the results of the internal grievance procedures, and their harassment complaint is based on one of 11 identified grounds, they may go before the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
While I believe my office's policy framework is appropriate—
My name is Paula Turtle, and I am Canadian counsel to the United Steelworkers. I am here on behalf of Ken Neumann, the Canadian national director of the Steelworkers. We thank you for the invitation to speak before this committee today.
The United Steelworkers represents about 230,000 members across Canada in every geographic and economic jurisdiction. In the federal sector, we represent about 12,000 members in transportation, banking, nuclear, and other industries. Right now, about 20% of the Steelworkers' members are women, but the union is growing. We expect that our growth will continue to be fuelled by the addition of female-dominated bargaining units in a number of industries, including the university sector where we now represent several thousand members, mostly women.
The union’s growth and diversity is fuelled by female activists within our union who are committed to ensuring that issues of importance to all workers, including women, are advanced and addressed. Our union has established successful anti-harassment programs and initiatives in many of the workplaces we represent. Before I say more about these programs, it's important to remember what prompted these actions by the Steelworkers at a time when our membership base was much less diverse than it is now.
In the early 1980s, women in workplaces across Canada were enduring harassment and discrimination on the job. They did not speak up. Many of them felt they could not speak up. But gradually, some brave women and their unions began to speak up and to fight back, and they said that sexual harassment is harmful to women and it must end.
Workplace harassment is more than just harmful and corrosive behaviour between individual workers that causes harm to its victims. It also generates conflict in workplaces, which almost invariably affects others by its poisoning effect.
The Steelworkers developed anti-harassment policies, which modified the traditional grievance procedure model, in order to effectively address harassment in workplaces. We developed mechanisms whose goals were to ensure that harassment does not occur, but if it does occur, to ensure that women who are the victims of harassment have a safe and effective way of reporting it and having it addressed. Some of our harassment policies, which have been negotiated into collective agreements, contain broad and expansive definitions of harassment. We think that having a clear and expansive scope of prohibited conduct is important, because it sends a message to employers and to workers that harassment will not be tolerated in any form. The policies also establish confidential and fair means of ensuring that incidents of harassment will be dealt with effectively and promptly.
However, we've learned that developing policies that respond to harassment incidents is not enough. We've also developed a proactive approach to eliminating harassment from workplaces by providing anti-harassment workplace training by union members for employees and management at workplaces. The training program provides important guidance to workers and to managers to enable both workplace parties to understand why harassment occurs, why it is harmful, and most importantly how to ensure it does not occur in the future. It's important to the success of this program that the training is presented to management and workers together. This ensures that both workplace parties benefit from the very important educative function of the program.
A third and important element of the Steelworkers' approach to harassment is to investigate and mediate incidents of harassment between union members in the workplace early and effectively so that harassment ends before it can escalate into more harmful workplace conflict. In our experience, early intervention in workplace conflict also presents the union with an opportunity to engage in valuable education and teaching opportunities to ensure that harassment does not recur. We have a long history of successful interventions in this regard.
We've established mechanisms to successfully address and eliminate harassment in many workplaces, including many in the male-dominated industrial sector. We can confidently claim that our harassment programs and interventions have resolved many disputes that would otherwise have escalated. But harassment can't be effectively addressed in all workplaces in Canada without changes to the laws that govern workplaces.
We're a powerful union with many members and many resources. Our ability to develop and advance anti-harassment training and language is attributable to the solidarity of our membership base, and the fact that the union’s elected leadership has chosen to make it a priority.
Even with the power of a strong and well-resourced union behind it, our programs do not exist in all workplaces, however. That's because they have to be negotiated, and employers do not always agree. Eradication of harassment in workplaces must not depend on a union's ability to negotiate it. We submit that the laws that govern federal workplaces must be changed to make it clear that harassment and violence will not be tolerated in any workplace in Canada, whether the employer agrees to collective agreement language or not, or whether the workplace has a union or not.
We know that the Canada Labour Code does contain some provisions to deal with harassment, but we submit that they would be improved if they included the following:
First, every workplace, union and non-union, must have a human rights committee to deal with all forms of harassment in the workplace, including sexual harassment. The committee structure could be modelled on health and safety committees under part II of the code. They should consist of equal numbers of management and worker or union representatives. They would deal with issues of harassment at the workplace level.
Second, we submit that an essential element of the establishment of these committees would be to ensure that the employees, management, and members of the committees are properly educated and trained so that they can be as effective as possible.
Finally, we submit in this respect that the definition of sexual harassment should be broadened and expanded to echo a more descriptive definition, such as the following, taken from a Steelworkers collective agreement. I'll read from the agreement:
Sexual Harassment is any unsolicited and unwelcome conduct, comment, gesture or contact of a sexual nature that is likely to cause offence or humiliation or might be perceived as placing a condition of a sexual nature on conditions of employment, including any opportunity for training or promotion.
Sexual Harassment may include but is not limited to: suggestive remarks, jokes, innuendos, or taunting in a sexual context; unwanted touching; leering; compromising invitations; displaying of pornographic or other offensive or derogatory pictures or material of a sexual nature; sexually degrading words used to describe a person or a group; derogatory or degrading words regarding gender or sexual orientation, or directed towards members of one sex or one’s sexual orientation; sexual assault.
We also submit that the issue of workplace harassment cannot be addressed without addressing workplace violence, including workplace violence connected to domestic violence. Workplace violence may be separate from but may also arise from a source outside of the workplace. Bill 168 in Ontario amended the Occupational Health and Safety Act to require employers to develop, implement, and maintain workplace policies to protect workers from workplace harassment and violence, including workplace harassment and violence which may be related to domestic violence.
The Canada Labour Code establishes duties of workplace parties to deal with workplace violence and harassment, including the development of policies. However, we submit that the code’s provisions are deficient because they do not go far enough to impose clear and specific duties on employers. For example, the code requires employers to develop the policies to deal with workplace violence and harassment, but importantly does not address the issue of domestic violence and its impact on the workplace. Employers are required to take reasonable precautions to protect the safety of employees. However, we submit that given the stigma associated with domestic violence, especially if the victim and aggressor are colleagues, provisions that relate specifically to domestic violence are required.
:
Madam Chair and honourable committee members, good morning. Thank you for your time.
CAW welcomes the opportunity to come before the committee today to highlight our work in combatting sexual harassment in the workplace.
CAW is the largest private sector union in Canada. We represent 200,000 members in all sectors of the economy, of which 34% are women. We represent approximately 35,000 workers who are federally regulated in various sectors, such as air, truck, and rail transportation.
In the federal sector sexual harassment complaints are dealt with either via the harassment language in the collective agreement or the grievance process. The Canadian Human Rights Commission process is very slow and our members view it as ineffective. CAW has a long-standing commitment to working towards the creation of a society in which discriminatory attitudes and practices are eliminated and all persons are treated with dignity and respect.
Human rights struggles have historically been part of the union since the early days of organizing. The CAW constitution has required mandatory human rights committees and women's committees since the 1960s. We offer annual women's and human rights conferences for our members. The role of the national human rights department and the women's department is to ensure that equality issues are a top priority within the CAW. In 1988 the CAW national executive board adopted an anti-harassment policy to confront all forms of harassment with an effective procedure for swift resolution of complaints.
The catalyst for increasing our efforts to end workplace harassment and violence against women came as a result of the tragic events that took place on December 6, 1989, when a lone gunman entered École Polytechnique, separated the women from the men, and systematically murdered 14 engineering students. Fourteen students were shot dead solely because they were women. This day would become indelibly imprinted on the minds of the nation who struggled to comprehend the worst gender-based massacre in Canadian history. In the wake of what is now known as the Montreal massacre, there was a lot of dialogue taking place both inside and outside the labour movement. Activists were demanding that governments, employers, and society address gender-based violence and engage as they never had before. In response, CAW activists and leadership gathered to discuss what role the union could play to assist our members facing violence in their personal lives, at home, or in the workplace.
From these discussions, the women’s advocate program was born, a program that would see the creation of a workplace leadership position to assist women facing violence in their lives. In 1993 the women’s advocate program became a bargaining priority during negotiations with General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, and our union successfully negotiated our first women’s advocates, 27 in total. It soon became evident that in workplaces where women’s advocates were negotiated, women who connected with these advocates found that they were not alone. It provided their right to be free from violence, and they were provided with the support and community resources they needed to leave a violent relationship. Their jobs were protected when they needed time off work to find safety. Women who found support through their workplace women’s advocate often went on to live a life free from violence.
Since those negotiations in 1993, women’s advocates have remained a bargaining priority within the CAW. Today we have 262 women’s advocates across the country in every sector of the union, including health care, transportation, fisheries, education, gaming, hospitality, retail, and manufacturing. Not only has bargaining a women’s advocate program been a priority during negotiations, but negotiating employer-paid training funds has as well. The CAW women’s department offers a 40-hour basic training program to all new advocates, as well as a three-day annual update to assist the advocate in her new role.
While the actual number of advocates and their training is important, the success of the women’s advocate program will be measured not solely by our gains at the bargaining table, but also and more significantly by the hundreds of CAW women who have been supported, believed, validated, and empowered.
The women’s advocate program has received recognition from outside organizations working in the area of gender-based violence as well.
Barb MacQuarrie, community director of the Centre for Research and Education on Violence against Women and Children, at the University of Western Ontario said:
programs like the CAW's Women's Advocate [program] raise awareness about violence and better allow women a way out of violent situations....[The Women's Advocate program] is a model program which should be implemented in all workplaces across the country.
Belinda Leach, associate professor at the department of sociology and anthropology, University of Guelph, said:
Women's participation in the labour force has...been recognized as essential to the promotion of equality. Our research suggests that dedicated union women's advocates promote workplace equity at the same time that they assist individual women.
The International Labour Organization has also recognized the CAW women’s advocate program as a program that needs to be present in workplaces around the world.
Julie White, director of the CAW's women's department, has been invited to the 2013 session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women where the theme is the elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls. The CAW will share with women leaders and activists from around the world our experiences, our challenges, our bargaining strategies, and our successes. This will be a proud moment for our union, a moment that without the courage, determination, and commitment of the hundreds of CAW women’s advocates, would not have been possible.
In our ongoing efforts to create safer workplaces and safer communities, from its inception in 1993 the CAW women’s advocate program has helped to save the lives of women and their children in communities across Canada, something the CAW is truly proud of. We have continued to build upon its early successes to achieve the amazing program it has become today, a highly respected program that is unique to the CAW.
A women's advocate is a specially trained workplace representative who assists women with concerns, such as workplace harassment, intimate violence, and abuse. The women’s advocate is not a counsellor but rather provides support for women accessing community and workplace resources. The women’s advocate program is an excellent example of a successful joint union-management initiative that helps create respectful, healthy, and safe workplaces.
In addition, we have negotiated harassment policies in about 89% of our collective agreements. We work to put in place workable policies and procedures to enforce the employer’s duty to provide a safe and harassment-free workplace.
CAW negotiates a joint anti-harassment process and joint workplace human rights training for all workers, which assists members in the fight against harassment and discrimination and helps build respectful workplaces. Employers who initially hesitate to negotiate this process find it very useful once it’s established. The joint process not only helps the employer's bottom line, but also builds great workplace culture and safer communities.
I don't know for sure if the committee has the chart that I provided. The flow chart basically outlines how this process works. I will just refer to it and go on that.
A joint anti-harassment committee is established. If a woman or a man—any worker—believes they have been discriminated against, or if they have harassment issues, they can contact their union representative or supervisor and try to deal with the issue informally.
If they're satisfied with the result, the process ends right there, but at the same time, they may not be satisfied or they may want to go to a formal process, which would be a written complaint and apply to the joint anti-harassment committee.
The committee will determine any preliminary issues. They will appoint one representative from both the employer and the union as soon as possible, but no later than five days.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I have a number of questions, but since I have been a member of your committee for a long time, I would like to share a part of my time with our colleague Ms. Crockatt, who, as you know, has recently joined our team.
[English]
By the way, thank you both so very much for coming and speaking with us. This is so very helpful. Both of the presentations, Ms. Turtle and Mr. Sharma, are very helpful and very much appreciated.
I want to speak, first of all, to the fact that I very much appreciated Mr. Sharma's commentary on women but we are here—and I know all of my colleagues feel very strongly about this—to ensure there is no harassment in the workplace, and this does not preclude men. In fact, we are equally seized with the reality that we don't want a man to be subjected to any kind of harassment in the workplace. That has happened in the past.
We're equal opportunity here; we're both sides of the coin. It's so easy to exclude men from even the concept of sexual harassment. I am personally aware of a situation where that is exactly what happened, so we have to be equally vigilant for all genders.
I'm very gratified to hear the inclusion work that you're doing. Certainly, the Conservative government has done a lot of inclusion work ensuring that women have been able to be participants in non-traditional employment opportunities, so it's very gratifying to hear.
Ms. Turtle, could you speak to the fact that your policies are available to both men and women? I'm sure they are, but could you just confirm that?
My question is around these numbers, of course, which are troubling because we don't have them. My question is also around a public service employee survey that previous witnesses from the Public Service Alliance mentioned. In the survey employees said there was a high incidence that when they were harassed, they were actually harassed by a co-worker. Given that scenario and the fact that they're both union members and that you're representing both sides, how does the union handle that? What processes do you work through with them, given that you're in this bit of a conflict situation representing both sides?
I'd like to also hear something about the fact that in the information that we received, and which I read, you were saying that you want to maintain the workplace, you want to maintain those workers in the workplace, and that you would prefer, of course, to do training in other things rather than let these workers go, etc., but at what point in time does that happen, or should that happen? We certainly heard from witnesses earlier that it should happen more. How do you, as a union, deal with this very difficult and sensitive situation?