Status of Women Committee on Jan. 31st, 2013

[Ann Therese MacEachern]

There's one that we were recognized for just yesterday. In fact, I received an e-mail that we were recognized for our work in domestic violence in the community. This is in southern Ontario. We were speaking to the domestic violence arm of the London police in the fall, as well as the university. Just yesterday I received an e-mail that one of our human rights officers was recognized for this work.

I think Amanda can elaborate on some interesting work we've done with respect to transgender employees. People have reached out to us to understand how to manage an issue like that in the workplace. I'll let Amanda elaborate on that.

[Amanda Maltby]

There are a few other examples actually. Over the last two to three years we've done quite a bit, which is pretty exciting, in the workplace.

As it relates to transgender, we have five individuals now who we've successfully transitioned into the workplace. Hats off to our human resources manager out in the Pacific region because she took a real lead in this in terms of working with external groups within the community and also putting in place a program that we've now been recognized for by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Our colleagues at Purolator are very interested in knowing more about it as well.

Really, it was a program by which we directly engaged the individual who was transitioning and wanted to transition back into the workplace. We worked with them around what were their needs and spent a lot of time working with the local employees and the direct individuals these folks would come into contact with to sensitize them about these issues and to really define transgenderism. I think there was a lot of confusion in the minds of people in even understanding. As you know, the effectiveness of any policy is really contingent on what it is you do to support these things in terms of creating awareness, in terms of creating a better understanding of these types of situations.

We're very pleased that we were able to put that program in place and be recognized for it.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Madam, before I go on, I want to congratulate you on your news yesterday and hats off to you for all of the work that you're doing.

What would you say would be the definition if you were to give a brief definition of transgenderism?

[Amanda Maltby]

Of transgenderism?

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Yes.

[Amanda Maltby]

In our policies, I won't do this justice, but I will say it is where for an individual there has certainly been a birth confusion about their sexuality, and once that is defined, it is where a person is moving from one gender to another. In the cases in our workplace, we've dealt with more cases where it's male to female in terms of helping transition individuals into their new self into the workplace.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

It would certainly be a difficult task to deal with and deal with in the proper way.

We also talked about training. What is the content of the training that you provide and what is cost? Who pays for it?

[Ann Therese MacEachern]

In terms of content, there's a range of elements to it, and Amanda could probably speak to the details, that really deal with the highlights of the 11 grounds of discrimination including, as I said, a piece on sexual orientation. It was co-designed and is co-delivered with members of our union.

In terms of the cost of training, I don't have the cost of that particular program per se, but we have put a number of employees through it. Last year we put about 1,800 front-line employees and 400 supervisors through that particular program. It's really extensive.

[Amanda Maltby]

I would start by saying many thanks to our colleagues at CUPW and PSAC for helping develop the content. They are very actively involved and we benefit from their knowledge certainly of the workplace but of the issues as well.

The training, as Ann Therese said, is based on the 11 grounds for discrimination, but it actually goes a bit further. It's very interactive. Because it's in a classroom setting, there's the ability.... In looking at the sexual harassment module, just in itself, there are cases presented and individuals break into groups and they have to work through them. It involves providing a greater understanding for the participants and our employees of what sexual harassment is and what it is they can do about it.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

You have one minute.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Who is the provider for the training? Is it the Canada School of Public Service, or an external provider?

[Ann Therese MacEachern]

It's our own people. We have representatives, as I said, from our unions who co-facilitate, but it's our own internal people who also deliver the training. It's one of the nice areas where there's a wonderful alignment between our unions and management on making sure that our workplace is free from discrimination.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Are you finished? Thank you.

I will yield the floor to Ms. Sgro for seven minutes.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Welcome to both of our witnesses. I have to say thank you for coming and sharing the positive stories. We're interested in the positives, not just the negatives that are facing many of the departments. We welcome you to come and share your success stories.

Of the 70,000 employees you have, you referred earlier to 48 informal complaints, and so on. Do you have the breakdown of the different areas of the postal service which the complaints were generated from?

[Amanda Maltby]

We do, but the context of workplace violence is where we've done our most work. We've done that because it's part of the work we've done on risk assessments. I would refine it a little bit to say that it's based certainly on the type of job people are doing, and when that brings them into greater risk as it relates to incidents of workplace violence. You could certainly say that unwanted sexual advances could be one of those as well.

In terms of looking at the harassment numbers, we can break them down based on region. We can break them down based on employee-employee or employee-supervisor. Certainly, we can do that kind of refinement. We've recently been able to do that because we've brought in a new reporting tool within the last two years, which is fantastic. It's a new database. In that database we can look at harassment. We can look at human rights and workplace violence. Based on looking across those incidents, we can determine where it is we have common occurrences, where it is we have to do extra prevention, where it is we would have greater risk in the workplace as it relates to harassment, certainly, but sexual harassment can be delineated from looking at the data.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

In order for someone to be dismissed from Canada Post as a result of harassment, whether it be sexual harassment or otherwise, how lenient are you until you reach the point where you've had enough? We've heard from other areas that employees are transferred to another division, and after two years some of these things are wiped off the record, so other people wouldn't know they have a history of harassment. What's your limit that you would cope with before you decided that enough is enough and the person would be dismissed?

Can you give examples of that?

[Ann Therese MacEachern]

There are disciplinary processes that we follow with respect to our unionized employees. There are a number of steps that need to be followed, managed, and so forth with those.

I would say with our management employees the tolerance level is lower. The reason for that is, and I talked a bit about it earlier, it's around the tone that you need to set, and the leadership that's expected from that group. I have not been involved in a lot of cases, but I've been involved in a couple of cases where we've released somebody because they were at a level and the behaviour was egregious enough to warrant a dismissal. I wouldn't say this is a common problem we have or a common approach we take, but that has happened.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

In those numbers I would suspect you have a lot more of them out in the field where you have different people operating differently. Am I wrong to suggest that would be where the majority of the complaints would come from?

[Ann Therese MacEachern]

That's correct.

[Amanda Maltby]

You're right.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

On the issue of establishing a certain culture in certain organizations, we've heard that in some of them this was acceptable and people just put up with it. Do you have any reason to suspect there's an under-reporting of complaints because of concerns about job security?

[Ann Therese MacEachern]

I don't get that sense. I don't think there would be an under-reporting because of job security. As I said, there are so many different avenues for people to report those.

I also don't want to mislead the committee and say that there have been a lot of dismissals within our unionized workforce. The actions must be egregious. They must be repeated. That's when you take very serious action.

As I said, there are a number of disciplinary measures that are outlined that we follow to be fair to everybody involved in the incident and to make sure that the right corrective steps are taken.

[Amanda Maltby]

With regard to their under-reporting, I've been thinking about it since you asked the question. I would say no, for a number of reasons, recognizing that for some individuals, it is very difficult to come forward with allegations of sexual harassment.

I say that because we have a number of avenues for our employees to use, and they're actively using them. The avenues permit them to do so anonymously, all the way through to being able to approach individuals they feel they'd be more comfortable speaking to.

The question was asked earlier about what happens if the issue is with their direct supervisor. There's an ability for them to use alternate channels. They can speak to their union representative. We find, certainly, that union representatives will come directly to us on behalf of the employee.

The thing about our human rights representatives is that some of them have been doing this for a very long time and are very highly respected. They're respected because of their impartiality and also because of their knowledge and experience in the area.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

You have one minute.