EC Negotiations – Harassment
July 20, 2004
Article 17 of your collective agreement gives you the right to work in an environment free from sexual harassment. This means that if you are a victim of sexual harassment, you have the right to file a grievance and be represented by a union representative and if you are not satisfied with the outcome of your grievance, you also have the option to refer the grievance to a neutral third party, an adjudicator of the Public Service Staff Relations Board.
CAPE has proposed to expand the definition of harassment in the collective agreement to include the notions of personal harassment and abuse of authority. CAPE proposed removing the reference to “sexual” and to include the following definition of harassment:
Harassment is any improper conduct by an individual or individuals, that is directed at and offensive to another person or persons in the workplace, and that the individual knew or ought reasonably to have known would cause offence or harm. It comprises any objectionable act, comment or display that demeans, belittles, or causes personal humiliation or embarrassment, and any act of intimidation or threat. It includes harassment within the meaning of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Under our proposal, harassment would not be limited to sexual harassment but would include personal harassment, psychological harassment and abuse of authority. Personal harassment is defined above. Psychological harassment is “any vexatious behaviour in the form of hostile, inappropriate and unwanted conduct, verbal comments, actions or gestures that affects an employee’s dignity or psychological or physical integrity and that results in a harmful workplace for the employee (as defined in Bill C-451, An Act to prevent psychological harassment in the workplace and to amend the Canada Labour Code introduced in 2003 by Diane Bourgeois, a Member of Parliament from the Bloc Québécois).
Abuse of authority is a form of harassment that occurs when a person improperly uses the power and authority inherent in his or her position to endanger an employee’s job, undermine the performance of that job, threaten the economic livelihood of the employee or interfere in any way with the career of the employee. It includes intimidation, threats, blackmail or coercion. Our analysis of the findings of the 2002 Public Service Employee Survey showed that the principal source of harassment for both ES and SI respondents were individuals with authority over the respondent.
Treasury Board’s own study on the occurrence of harassment in the workplace conducted in 1999 revealed that personal and abuse of authority were the main grounds for complaints of harassment representing a total of 89% and 86% of complaints respectively while complaints of sexual harassment represented 7% of all complaints.
Currently, public service employees do have the right to file a harassment complaint under the Treasury Board Policy on the Prevention and Resolution of Harassment in the Workplace. However, there are two major weaknesses with the policy approach. Firstly, a policy can be changed at any time by the Treasury Board (e.g. abuse of authority was removed in the definition of harassment in 2001). Secondly, under a policy, there is no third party recourse. Once an investigation has determined whether a complaint is founded or unfounded, complainants and respondents to a complaint must accept the employer’s decision. The allegations of abuse will not be heard by an independent tribunal.
This is not the first time we have tabled such a proposal nor is CAPE the first union to make such a proposal. Yet, even despite the fact that close to 20,000 federal public service employees reported being the subject of harassment in the 2002 Public Service Employee Survey, Treasury Board still refuses to broaden the definition in the collective agreement.
July 20, 2004
Article 17 of your collective agreement gives you the right to work in an environment free from sexual harassment. This means that if you are a victim of sexual harassment, you have the right to file a grievance and be represented by a union representative and if you are not satisfied with the outcome of your grievance, you also have the option to refer the grievance to a neutral third party, an adjudicator of the Public Service Staff Relations Board.
CAPE has proposed to expand the definition of harassment in the collective agreement to include the notions of personal harassment and abuse of authority. CAPE proposed removing the reference to “sexual” and to include the following definition of harassment:
Harassment is any improper conduct by an individual or individuals, that is directed at and offensive to another person or persons in the workplace, and that the individual knew or ought reasonably to have known would cause offence or harm. It comprises any objectionable act, comment or display that demeans, belittles, or causes personal humiliation or embarrassment, and any act of intimidation or threat. It includes harassment within the meaning of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Under our proposal, harassment would not be limited to sexual harassment but would include personal harassment, psychological harassment and abuse of authority. Personal harassment is defined above. Psychological harassment is “any vexatious behaviour in the form of hostile, inappropriate and unwanted conduct, verbal comments, actions or gestures that affects an employee’s dignity or psychological or physical integrity and that results in a harmful workplace for the employee (as defined in Bill C-451, An Act to prevent psychological harassment in the workplace and to amend the Canada Labour Code introduced in 2003 by Diane Bourgeois, a Member of Parliament from the Bloc Québécois).
Abuse of authority is a form of harassment that occurs when a person improperly uses the power and authority inherent in his or her position to endanger an employee’s job, undermine the performance of that job, threaten the economic livelihood of the employee or interfere in any way with the career of the employee. It includes intimidation, threats, blackmail or coercion. Our analysis of the findings of the 2002 Public Service Employee Survey showed that the principal source of harassment for both ES and SI respondents were individuals with authority over the respondent.
Treasury Board’s own study on the occurrence of harassment in the workplace conducted in 1999 revealed that personal and abuse of authority were the main grounds for complaints of harassment representing a total of 89% and 86% of complaints respectively while complaints of sexual harassment represented 7% of all complaints.
Currently, public service employees do have the right to file a harassment complaint under the Treasury Board Policy on the Prevention and Resolution of Harassment in the Workplace. However, there are two major weaknesses with the policy approach. Firstly, a policy can be changed at any time by the Treasury Board (e.g. abuse of authority was removed in the definition of harassment in 2001). Secondly, under a policy, there is no third party recourse. Once an investigation has determined whether a complaint is founded or unfounded, complainants and respondents to a complaint must accept the employer’s decision. The allegations of abuse will not be heard by an independent tribunal.
This is not the first time we have tabled such a proposal nor is CAPE the first union to make such a proposal. Yet, even despite the fact that close to 20,000 federal public service employees reported being the subject of harassment in the 2002 Public Service Employee Survey, Treasury Board still refuses to broaden the definition in the collective agreement.