Employers are required by law to address workplace violence and harassment immediately.
The most common understanding of workplace sexual harassment is conduct such as making passes, soliciting sexual favours, questions about sexual activities, sexual touching.
However, workplace sexual harassment is often not about sexual desire or interest at all! It is about control. Often, it involves sexist attitudes, negative assumptions, hostility, rejection, bullying and/or diminishment based on a person’s sex, gender and sexual orientation.
Sexual harassment is any unwelcome behaviours, actions or words which:
Workplace sexual harassment includes conduct, comments or gestures that are sexual, sexualised, and/or gender based. These interactions happen once or repeatedly in the workplace, they are unwelcome, and cause harm.
Other forms of harassment in the workplace include:
Yes. Under Health and Safety and Human Rights legislation, employers must prevent and address workplace harassment in their workplaces or they will be held financially liable. Employers are also vicariously responsible for the actions of their employees.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse against liability. Perpetrators of workplace sexual harassment may be:
Employers have a legal obligation to both prevent and address workplace harassment.
These legal obligations come from:
As of April 1, 2019 – all employers in NB are required to have a workplace harassment complaint policy.
Intersectionality is the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
Intersectionality is the idea that we are not made up of just one identity. Some people fall into more than one vulnerable group. This is called intersectionality. In these situations, the experience of harassment may be compounded.
For example:
When these different identities intersect, and a person can identify with more than one minority group, it can create double or triple the amount of discrimination.
Knowing where a behaviour falls depends on the situation, history of the relationship, tone of delivery, and nonverbal actions.
Spectrum of Sexual Misconduct at Work (Professor Kathleen Kelly Reardon USC)
Creating inclusive, respectful and positive work environments for everyone
Educate managers, supervisors, and employees by:
Bystanders are persons who witness (see or hear) another employee being sexually harassed. They can play an important role in addressing workplace sexual harassment.
Ask the person to stop – an effective way of ending harassment in the workplace is to communicate your concerns directly by telling the person the behaviour is unwelcome and must stop, or by requesting your employer do so on your behalf.
When that is not practical or appropriate, there are other options available to you including filing a complaint under workplace harassment policy, under human rights legislation, or with the police.
Complaint under workplace harassment policy:
There are informal and formal methods of addressing complaints of workplace harassment:
Complaint under human rights legislation:
The NB Human Rights Act prohibits workplace sexual harassment and discrimination in employment as well as housing, public services, in memberships in trade unions, professional or business organizations, and trade associations.
Complaints must be filed in writing within 12-months of the incident of alleged harassment, or 12-months of the last incident if on-going.
Complaint to police:
Sexual and other forms of assault are serious criminal offences. They are covered under the Criminal Code. Police can be asked to lay criminal charges.
Everyone in the workplace has the right to work without being sexually harassed. We can all be part of the positive conversation on how to prevent and address sexual harassment. This will help to create safer workplaces.
You can ask your employer to post a Positive Conversations poster in your break room.