People experiencing sexual harassment at work must also face the most complex legal regime in Quebec if they seek to be protected and compensated, believes Juripop. With many laws applying to their situation, they no longer know which door to knock on and end up losing recourse and compensation, adds the legal body.
He sees Bill 42, currently being studied by elected officials in Quebec, as an opportunity to achieve these objectives: better protection of victims and their rights.
If the bill relating to psychological harassment and sexual violence in the workplace (PL42) is adopted, it would improve the current situation and provide better protection to victims, said Wednesday in a telephone interview Me Sophie Gagnon, the general director of Juripop, an organization dedicated to improving access to justice. If it is “a step in the right direction”, it must nevertheless go further.
Because to obtain compensation, it is a real “maze”, she said, after presenting a memorandum to the parliamentary committee on Tuesday.
“Is the Labor Standards Act (LNT) applicable? Is it the Law on Work Accidents and Occupational Diseases (LATMP) or another of the laws relating to harassment or sexual violence? How to find your way there? », asks the lawyer out loud.
For example, a remedy for harassment exists in the LNT but if a person develops an anxiety disorder as a result of this harassment, it may be an employment injury which makes compensation possible under the LATMP.
“And if you don’t knock on the right door first, you can lose your rights,” says Mr. Gagnon.
She therefore requests the repeal of a provision considered problematic in the LNT: it seeks to prevent “double compensation” when a person also makes a claim under another law. The objective is reasonable, but it is applied inconsistently, which causes victims to lose compensation, notes Me Gagnon.
Bill 42, on the other hand, incorporates two new features which could considerably help victims with their claims.
First, it provides that an illness that occurs within three months after sexual violence suffered at work is presumed to be an “occupational injury” within the meaning of the LATMP. This makes it easier for victims to seek compensation. Except that Juripop would like this not to be limited to a period of three months: psychological damage can take time to manifest.
The second presumption incorporated into the bill is that of “connectedness” between the worker’s illness or injury and the harassment suffered at work. There is, however, this obstacle, according to Me Gagnon: it excludes reprehensible behavior having taken place in a “strictly private context. » This misunderstands the nature of harassment, argues Juripop, because it can be done by text message over the weekend or during a dinner with a superior that one could not avoid.
Too much secrecy also surrounds the disciplinary process of a harasser, notes the lawyer. She wants the employer to be authorized to reveal to the victim the sanctions imposed on the perpetrator of violence following an internal investigation – which is not currently the case. Me Gagnon illustrates his suggestion with a real case: an employee worked in the same delivery truck as a harassing colleague. The internal investigation recognized the harassment, but the employer refused to communicate the sanctions to the complainant, preventing her from knowing whether measures had been put in place to ensure her safety. Fearing her colleague’s behavior, she preferred to resign.
Finally, Me Gagnon highlights another advance in Bill 42. If current law provides that the costs of professional injuries resulting from sexual violence are attributed to the specific employer of the complainant, the bill proposes that these costs be instead imputed to all employers in the classification unit — for example, the restaurant sector. Juripop “strongly” supports this proposal, anticipating that this distribution of costs would ensure that the employer would no longer be as motivated to “systematically” contest each claim of a worker.