Status of Women committee  Okay. As I indicated in my submission, the union does—

Status of Women committee  Shall I go first?

Status of Women committee  Sure. You raised conflict. In fact, if there is an instance of worker harassment, we try to intervene early to resolve the issue in a way that is mutually satisfactory to both parties and in a way that results in education not just to the parties to the harassment but to the whole workplace.

Status of Women committee  We know that the programs haven't eradicated harassment completely because we have incidents that occur. We have staff members in our national office and trained people at our district level and activists at the local level inside the workplace who from time to time are engaged in addressing disputes and resolving them.

Status of Women committee  I'm happy to do my best to quantify that. I don't have the numbers with me now, but I can tell you that the Steelworkers have worked very hard for many years to eradicate harassment. We haven't succeeded in that objective because we still have incidents of harassment, but we do believe that our efforts in every workplace to educate, train and address situations early have been effective.

Status of Women committee  We're happy to do our best.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.