Status of Women committee  I will try to get the best possible numbers that I can gather on all of those.

Status of Women committee  Within the CAW we have what we call the national human rights department, which is the department that I work in. We also have the national women's department. My colleague Julie White, who couldn't be here today, heads that. She works closely with all of the women's advocates and she keeps all of that information.

Status of Women committee  Okay, sure. The timelines are as soon as a written complaint comes into the committee, they need to deal with it quickly; in most cases, we say within five working days. They will appoint the parties to do the investigation. The investigation has to be done as quickly as possible and resolved within 10 working days in most cases.

Status of Women committee  The employer has the responsibility to provide a harassment-free and safe workplace. Once an investigation has concluded, the conclusion goes to the human resources manager of the workplace. It's up to them to see what kind of remedy, punishment, discipline, or so on they are going to give.

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  Yes. In cases where it is a co-worker, we follow the same procedure. Both sides are represented. Once an investigation is done, if it is a formal one and there are no grey areas, in some cases, yes, there is some sort of discipline. Our key mandate is to build the workplace culture.

Status of Women committee  No, they're not. Quite a few of them are in large companies, but they're also in very small workplaces. It's bargained in the sense that if they are large workplaces, they are either full time or they get more time to do this job as part of their normal work, but in smaller workplaces they get less time.

Status of Women committee  Yes, and then they are specifically trained. The employer actually pays for the training. It's a joint training. The employer also provides a liaison, who is female, who works with them. They work together closely. In many cases there are men who have issues. They go to them as well, and they would help them if they do.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.