Digest of Benefit Entitlement Principles - Chapter 6

6.3.2    Sexual or Other Harassment

Harassment is generally defined as any improper behaviour by a person that is directed at and offensive to another person and which the first person knew or ought reasonably to have known would be unwelcome. Harassment may take the form of reprehensible comments, actions or displays which humiliate, degrade or embarrass another person. Harassment may come from a person or a group of persons, managers or employees, creating a hostile and poisoned work environment that quickly becomes intolerable.

Harassment also includes abuse of power through the injurious exercise of authority for the purpose of compromising a person's employment, damaging performance at work, endangering means of subsistence or interfering with that person’s career in any other way. Acts such as intimidation, threats, blackmail and coercion also constitute a form of harassment.

Whether sexual or non-sexual in nature or committed once or many times, harassment is reprehensible and cannot be tolerated. Sexual harassment in particular is a major problem in many workplaces and is extremely traumatic, both physically and psychologically, for the victim.

It is generally recognized that most victims of sexual harassment in the workplace are women. Although there is recourse available, victims of sexual harassment do not for the most part take any action and instead suffer in silence to avoid being judged by society or out of fear that there will be reprisals or their career will be jeopardized.

Harassment is not exclusive to the workplace and can take the form of exterior threats, abuse or violence. The victim is usually a woman and the harassment originating from the spouse or other intimate partner may even go on up to the workplace.  

Violence against women is a serious problem that causes injury, emotional trauma and even death, and inevitably affects the victim’s performance at work. Victims may feel required to leave their home and even to take leave or leave their employment to escape a violent relationship, cutting off all possible contact with their aggressor to protect their safety or their life or the lives of their loved ones.

In general, victims are fully justified in taking leave or leaving their employment in such circumstances of harassment, abuse and violence. It is their only reasonable alternative, especially since they tend to hide their circumstances from those around them and tolerate the situation, which deteriorates throughout their relationship with originator of the harassment or violence until there are no other alternatives. 

A harassment victim may react in a number of different ways that may seem illogical or unreasonable to anyone who is unfamiliar with the psychological profile of the victim and the serious trauma harassment can cause. A victim will generally try to avoid any contact or confrontation with the person by whom he or she was harassed, request a transfer or a different work schedule, or take sick leave. Some victims even quit their jobs spontaneously to ensure there is no further harassment or to escape a situation that has become intolerable.

The officer cannot determine whether harassment occurred by examining the behaviour of the harassment victim after the fact and trying to ascertain to what point this harassment was intolerable or endangered his or her safety, integrity or life. As we saw in the previous sections,¹ the officer has to adapt his or her search for the facts to the circumstances and accept at face value the allegations made by the person who claims to have been harassed.

The fact that a person did not take any recourse or did not await the outcome of any remedy before voluntarily leaving his or her employment must not be considered against the claimant when the situation indicates intolerable harassment that could not have been resolved immediately or within a few days of the incident. However, if the company that employed the claimant had a credible, coherent and structured policy that the claimant could have used to resolve the situation immediately, the officer must ask the claimant to explain why he or she did not use that alternative, which on the surface appeared to be reasonable.

________________________

1. see 6.2.4, "A Test Based on Fact Finding with all the Parties"; see 6.2.5, "Benefit of the Doubt."