Status of Women Committee on Feb. 7th, 2013

[Paula Turtle]

Our policies are intended to apply and do operate to eradicate harassment on all prohibited grounds, including gender, race, sexual orientation. They don't apply only to women. Our experience happens to be that the majority of harassment incidents, when they do occur in workplaces, involve harassment against women, but our policies are not intended to exclude other victims of harassment from seeking remedy.

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

That's great to hear.

Moving to Mr. Sharma, you mentioned that 89% of your collective agreements have a harassment clause. What happened to the other 11%? Is this just creeping in?

Perhaps Ms. Turtle would be the one to speak to this first, because this is 2013 and this has been an issue for a long time. Collective agreements get renewed. How did this happen?

[Paula Turtle]

As I indicated in my remarks, we have harassment language in the majority of our collective agreements but not in all of them, because in order to include a provision in a collective agreement when it is processed, the employer has to agree, and employers don't always agree. Sometimes employers will say we don't need collective agreement language because there are human rights codes in the various jurisdictions.

As Mr. Sharma said, and our members in many jurisdictions experience the same thing, human rights processes can be quite slow and therefore not effective in dealing with harassment. As I said in my remarks—

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

Ms. Turtle, I want to pursue something you just said because, frankly, the Government of Canada is an employer that is very keen to eradicate harassment and has taken very responsible steps to do so, including the surveys, the policies, etc., that we have discussed at this committee.

We are advised that in developing its values, ethics, and harassment work the government has widely consulted with unions. Were you consulted? I know you are not working for the federal government directly, but did you have a voice in this process?

[Paula Turtle]

As I said in my remarks, we represent about 12,000 members in the federal sector. I can't comment right now on whether our union was consulted, but I can tell you that in the course of preparing my remarks, I did some research and learned that the union has encountered serious harassment incidents in some of our federal workplaces, which we have been able to resolve in many cases through the intervention of the union at early stages of those harassment incidents.

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

Okay, that's wonderful to hear.

I am now passing the floor to Madam Crockatt.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Wonderful, thank you very much.

We really appreciate your being here. Any and all insight that we can gather is great. As a new MP, I'm just starting to get a bit of a picture. It's coming together, the more witnesses that we hear, so I very much appreciate your being here to share your experience with us.

The Steelworkers have 12,000 members. What is the incidence of sexual harassment that you're dealing with among your 12,000 members? On an annual basis, say, how many complaints do you have?

[Paula Turtle]

Just to be clear, we have about 12,000 members in the federal sector.

I didn't quantify the number of complaints because, quite frankly, we hope that through our education and early intervention and mediation we are able to avoid situations escalating to where they come to the point of a complaint.

I can tell you that we have provided workplace training in workplaces with about 50,000 members altogether. That's not just in the federal jurisdiction but also in provincial jurisdictions.

Quite frankly, we hope that our success in educating and training, and intervening in the early stages has resulted in a reduction in the number of complaints, but we can only do that in circumstances where we have collective agreement language or the agreement of the employer, which is why we're submitting before this panel that it is important to have these kinds of processes—

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

I am going to have to stop you there, Ms. Turtle. Your time is up. Thank you.

We now move to Ms. Ashton, for seven minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you very much, Ms. Turtle and Mr. Sharma, for joining us today.

Unfortunately, I only have seven minutes to ask questions on behalf of the official opposition, the NDP. I have a few questions I'd like to go through and I'd ask that you share some of the more specific answers you might have and provide us with some written information for the committee to continue its work.

Regarding the data, Ms. Turtle, you mentioned the 12,000 workers United Steelworkers represents in the federal sector. I would like to hear from both you and Mr. Sharma if you have data, as in numbers, on how many of the workers United Steelworkers and CAW represent in the federal sector who have experienced sexual harassment. Is this data available, and if so, do you know the numbers now, or is this something you could provide us with later?

[Paula Turtle]

I can certainly try to provide you with as much information as we can.

One of the difficulties is, you've raised the question, Ms. Ashton, in terms of workers who have experienced sexual harassment. We hope that all of those circumstances come to our attention, but they don't always. I'm happy to try to quantify and report to you the number of incidents we've become aware of. I suspect, unfortunately, that it's not necessarily equivalent to the number of incidents that have actually occurred.

[Vinay Sharma]

I would give a similar kind of answer, but I would add that a lot of these issues are informally dealt with when they come up and, hence, there are no records kept of them. The numbers that we may try to provide you with will not be really accurate.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

If there is an opportunity to glean even some numbers.... Obviously, you're echoing something we've heard from many other witnesses, that people are very reluctant to come forward in many cases. We understand that is the frame, but if there are any numbers that might be available, we'd certainly appreciate it if you could share them with our committee.

Let's quickly move on to leadership, or perhaps lack of leadership.

Ms. Turtle and Mr. Sharma, you both indicated very succinctly what you see needs to be done around changes to the law that governs federal workplaces. That's really what our committee is here to do, give recommendations of things the federal government can do. Of course, we'd like to see the Status of Women department take a lead role in this.

Are you seeing any leadership or movement on this from your standpoint? Is there an effort? Clearly you're calling for it, but are you hearing back from people that there is an interest in looking at changing the laws that govern federal workplaces to include a clear provision on putting an end to sexual harassment and violence in the workplace?

Perhaps Mr. Sharma and then Ms. Turtle could answer.

[Vinay Sharma]

I am not actually seeing anything. I'm hearing a lot of talk, but I haven't seen any other effort that would substantiate that. I think if we had a little bit more time, I'd be able to explain the joint process that we have in the private workplaces where we have members. The employers really do take it seriously once they are part of this process, and it works very well. That's the reason you will see very few numbers, if any in some cases and you will see some in some other cases. On the legal part of it, the legislation part of it, there's a whole lot of talk, but I have not heard anything substantial.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you.

Ms. Turtle.

[Paula Turtle]

Our experience is similar to the CAW's. Our activists are constantly urging better action on this kind of thing from all levels of government. Like the CAW's experience, we have found that employers, once we have a joint committee in a workplace or a harassment committee, actually agree with us that it is an effective way, first of all, of educating the workforce so that there is a respectful workplace and problems tend not to arise, and second, of dealing with issues if they do arise so they don't escalate into serious problems. That's good for employers and good for workers.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Great, thank you very much for that feedback.

Finally we've heard from other witnesses about the environment we're in where there are some severe cuts happening in federal workplaces and how that creates stress and obviously an even greater amount of reluctance from people to come forward. PSAC brought this forward.

I'm wondering if that's something that you're seeing. What is the impact of these job cuts or looming job cuts in terms of the dynamics in the workplace, including sexual harassment?

Ms. Turtle.

[Paula Turtle]

Our experience is always the case that, when workplaces and workers are under pressure due to workplace cuts, employer demands, and those kinds of things, it increases the pressure on workers, and therefore contributes to an environment where workers feel less comfortable and less secure coming forward to advance their rights. It is a problem.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sharma.

[Vinay Sharma]

I would echo the comments of Ms. Turtle. We have experienced this in every workplace whenever there are job security issues because of the economy, because of job cuts. It is always highlighted that there are more equality issues as well, and people are trying to stay more silent so they won't be highlighted as the ones who will be cut from their work.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you very much for the succinct recommendations you brought forward. We would certainly welcome any data you could share with us, as I mentioned earlier. I want to recognize the groundbreaking work both your unions have done, whether it's through the women's advocate program or the women of steel program. We're looking at models here for workplaces that truly empower women and put an end to sexual harassment and violence and create a better workplace for everyone. Thank you for sharing the successes that you've worked hard to realize and we look forward to keeping in touch.

[The Chair, NDP, Marie-Claude Morin]

Thank you, Ms. Ashton.

Now we move to Ms. Young. You have seven minutes.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

I'm going to share my time with Madam Crockatt because she wants to finish asking some questions.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you very much.

Madam Turtle and Mr. Sharma, thank you very much for coming. I know it can sometimes be a little bit difficult to appear before a committee.

I just wanted to ask a little more about the successes of your program. This is one of the key things that we're trying to determine. How big is the issue? We want to make sure it's dealt with effectively. We want to hear the successes that people have had.

I had other people before this committee actually do an assessment of what's happening in their workplaces and come up with numbers for us.

You have 262 women's advocates and they're dealing with sexual harassment. We've heard from the post office that they only had one case, and if so these are things to celebrate. It's nothing to be embarrassed about if you think the numbers are low, but we would really like to know. I'm sure you've quantified it. How many cases have you had?

[Vinay Sharma]

As I said earlier, we will definitely try to give you as many numbers as possible from not only the women's activist, but as our policy encompasses, all the other peripheral grounds, even bullying in many cases. We will try to get you all the numbers we can.