Le istituzioni locali e il mondo associativo per la costruzione di una rete in materia di cooperazione, cultura di pace, integrazione multietnica, promozione dei diritti umani e della solidarietà fra i popoli.
Zero tolerance
At the end of January local newspapers wrote about a woman, Carla, working as a street cleaner at the Manutencoop, who was harassed by a colleague but had enough courage to inform on him. Though the man was sacked and sentenced to 1,5 years conditionally, however, that was not the end of the story as Carla’s male colleagues started terrorising her.
The Canadian experience of dealing with such situations was the subject of the lecture held by Prof. Judy Haiven (Saint Mary’s University, Canada) at the Residenza di Studi Superiori in Bologna on the 13th of February (Haiven, “Zero Tolerance- Can it work in a unionized environment?”, Labour/Le travail, 58, Fall 2006, 169-202).
Women increasingly work in the areas considered men’s domain. On the one hand, it gives them better employment perspectives and higher salaries. However, they often face discrimination from their male colleagues, sometimes with the aim to make them leave the job. In parallel with the growth of women’s employment, sexual harassment has become a wide-spread phenomenon.
Apart from sexual harassment in the form of making offers to improve woman’s working conditions or promotion opportunities if she accedes to the sexual advances of a superior, nowadays increasing attention is paid to “sexual disapprobation”, as Prof. Judy Haiven points out in her article on the topic. This type of sexual harassment is annoyance or intimidation, and though it usually does not directly affect the woman’s job prospects, it makes the workplace environment unsafe and often terrifying.
Most employers in Canada and, as we could see in the recent case in Bologna, apply “zero tolerance” policy. Zero tolerance means immediate discipline for a first offence ranging from a written warning to dismissal, and usually management prefers the latter, considering dismissal the most effective means of avoiding further financial and reputation costs. However, in a unionised environment, this policy meets with opposition as trade unions are obliged to protect interests of their members faced with discipline or discharge. Meanwhile, they abandon victims who are members of trade unions too.
As a rule, arbitrators do not support zero tolerance approach. In cases in which the offenders are remorseful, they are given back their places. If not, the decision of the employer is backed by the arbitrator. At the same time, the recent case in Bologna reveals that dismissal of the offender and court verdict are not an immediate and secure remedy. In Canada it is arbitrators that try to provide victims with a compensation and guarantee safe working conditions in the future (e.g. suspending the man from work for a certain period, making him or the union pay certain amount of money towards woman’s counselling, after the suspension period placing the man in a different area from the woman, etc).
While considering cases, arbitrators pay much attention to whether sexual harassment training was provided for employees. The availability of these courses in companies is supposed to be important when establishing to what extent employers are responsible. It is widely recognised that employees cannot not fully understand that they are doing something wrong without special training. However, the awareness that sexual harassment is a serious offence seems to be a question of personal education, therefore the guilt of the offender should not be de-emphasized.
To sum up, both employers and trade unions do not care about women’s interests. Employers just try to get rid of the offenders to protect their own financial interests without being occupied with the consequences experienced by women such as suffering from negative attitude of some colleagues after the incident became public. Trade unions always side with men, as it is them that face the threat of being fired, just ignoring women who are also their members. It is necessary to give a clear signal to potential offenders that sexual harassment is illegal and such actions will be definitely punished, as well as to potential victims, guaranteeing their protection not only from sexual harassment but also from discrimination at the working place later on.
(Halina Sapeha )
