Status of Women Committee on Feb. 7th, 2013

[Denise Benoit]

—one could have authority over the other. So there would need to be some change made to the employment of someone at the place.

[Mary Dawson]

It's just not something that's ever come up.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Fair enough.

I liked your reference to the informal, collegial atmosphere, and specifically, you believe that the relatively flat staff organizational structure has something to do with the fact that you just don't come up against many of these issues or problems. How would a larger workplace extrapolate that friendly, collegial atmosphere with a flat organizational structure? When you have a thousand employees, you can't have only three levels of reporting. By definition, you just can't have that informal, friendly atmosphere.

[Mary Dawson]

No, you'd have to rely on the various units within your organization to behave in that way.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

I also wanted to mention the survey you're going to be doing. I think Ms. Truppe asked a few questions about it.

This is less of a question than a piece of information that I hope you'll find useful when you do your survey. I wanted you to know that when public service witnesses came to speak to us about their survey—and it's a very comprehensive survey and it has hundreds of thousands of responses, so it gave us a lot of good information—for all the questions they asked and all the response they received, they didn't actually specify sexual harassment in their harassment questions, and they told us that they would next time.

I just offer that as a piece of advice. Take it for what it's worth and what you're paying for it. That is what they told us. I wanted to relay that to you.

I have a quick question with regard to your policy on punishment, if there were to be a case. You mentioned that it could be an oral reprimand or it could go as far as dismissal, depending on the severity of the case. I'm wondering if the reprimand would be put on the person's employment record.

[Mary Dawson]

It would be for a period of time. We follow the practice of leaving it on the record for about two years from the time of the last administrative activity on the file.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

I am going to have to interrupt you.

We now move to Ms. Ashton, for five minutes. Hers will probably be the last questions.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you very much for joining us, Ms. Dawson and Ms. Benoit.

You shared some very interesting information with us.

I wanted to start off with your mandate. Your title is Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. I think we all know that the conflict of interest part is linked to the Conflict of Interest Act. There's a clear understanding of what that is. In terms of ethics, I wonder how you define that and how that very broad term defines the scope of your work.

[Mary Dawson]

I said early on in my time as commissioner that “ethics” appears in the title of the act but it doesn't appear in any of the specific provisions of the act, so all of the provisions that I administer do not require me to interpret the word “ethics”.

I think different people have different ideas of what the term “ethics” comprises, and I think that's about all I can say.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Maybe I could go back to something that was quite humorous, the way you put it. Yours is a workplace that essentially polices ethics, and that may in fact create an environment where people do not engage in unethical behaviour, including harassment, which is ironic. There's an irony that doesn't apply to all workplaces. As you know, we're also looking at the RCMP, which is an institution that is supposed to look at safety, and yet there have been some egregious experiences of sexual harassment of women within the force.

To go back to that broad scope, and to go back to the work you often do with MPs or ministers or complaints against them, one of the challenges we've gleaned from senior officers of Parliament is the black hole when it comes to sexual harassment on Parliament Hill, with staff, and even between MPs. I'm proud to be part of a team that has many young women MPs, and there are some pretty horrific stories that some of us tell each other, and generally, I think, as women too. But there isn't actually a framework. Within our own party we have a collective agreement for staff, but that doesn't cover MPs. Certainly there's a real black hole when it comes to MPs from different parties interacting and harassment that takes place at that point.

Could you see that as being part of an investigation of a lack of ethics, or unethical behaviour in Parliament? Is there a discussion right now to include that kind of investigation in the work you do?

[Mary Dawson]

I think that generally, anything that happens on the Hill, for example, would be under the Board of Internal Economy, and my act expressly carves out their jurisdiction from my jurisdiction. It's interesting because, of all the many types of issues that are raised with me, I really can't remember a case where sexual harassment has been raised with my office. It probably would have been raised with the Clerk or the Speaker, but under the Board of Internal Economy.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

We did have the board here and obviously it's all in Hansard. Of course, as you know, in other workplaces people are very reluctant to come forward with what they experience and because of the public nature of this work as well. There's a real vulnerability there.

We do see a real lack of leadership when it comes to setting forth a clear indication that we need to be dealing with this stuff, that we're not immune by any means. If we're not, as parliamentarians, giving a lead in dealing with something like sexual harassment in the workplace, why would we expect others to take it as seriously as it ought to be taken? I'll leave that thought there.

Maybe just connecting to what you were saying, Madam Benoit, you referenced that you have access to a shared service. I was wondering if you could elaborate on what that shared service is.

[Denise Benoit]

Absolutely. For the time being, we use it mostly for compensation. They offer a wide range of services. We've gone to them for some advice on interpretation even of our own collective agreement, because we wanted to make sure that we were making the correct interpretation. They also offer services in labour relations. If we wanted to expand the level of services that we receive, we could actually go to them. It's a service specifically for smaller organizations. It perfectly fits our organization.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Unfortunately, I am going to have to stop you there.

This ends the first part of our meeting. It was very interesting. Thank you for taking the trouble to come to share your experience with us.

I am going to suspend the meeting for a few minutes so that our technicians can set up the video conference that we are going to have next.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Now let's continue the meeting.

Welcome to Paula Turtle, from the United Steelworkers and to Vinay Sharma from the Canadian Auto Workers.

Welcome and thank you for accepting our invitation to appear.

We will start with Ms. Turtle's testimony and then move to Mr. Sharma's.

You have ten minutes. When you only have one minute left, I will let you know.

Ms. Turtle, the floor is yours.

[Paula Turtle, Canadian Counsel, United Steelworkers]

Thank you very much.

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.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

You have one minute.

[Paula Turtle]

Thank you.

The Steelworkers submits that workplace violence and harassment can only be effectively and meaningfully addressed where this and other specific statutory duties are established, including a requirement that every employer should be required by law to prepare workplace harassment and violence policies that address domestic violence and its impact on the workplace. We submit that the Canada Labour Code should be amended to ensure that the protections contained in it are expanded and made more effective. We submit that stronger and more inclusive enforcement mechanisms are needed.

The United Steelworkers thanks this committee for the opportunity to make submissions on this very important issue of concern to our union and all Canadians.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Thank you, Ms. Turtle.

Before we move to questions and answers, I will give the floor to Mr. Sharma. You have ten minutes for your presentation. Then we will move to the question and answer period.

The floor is yours.

[Vinay Sharma, Director of Human Rights, Canadian Auto Workers]

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.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

I am sorry, Mr. Sharma, but your time is up. Can you wrap up very quickly, please? Then we will move to the question and answer period.

[Vinay Sharma]

Yes, I will.

How to create a workplace culture free of harassment means that we don't deal with complaints only, we also take a proactive approach. The CAW clearly understands that the women's advocate and joint process can't solve all of the issues that are the root cause of the issues.

With this in mind, we ask the federal government to commit to a national action plan that involves territorial, provincial, and aboriginal governments. a national plan that includes legislation, as well as specific resources, strategies, and timelines that have measurable results and display real progress.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Thank you.

Now we move to questions.

Ms. Bateman, you have seven minutes.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

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.

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?