It should come as no surprise that hostile work environments still exist throughout Canada and the world. Harassment, particularly against women in the workplace, is still prevalent here in Alberta, despite efforts by employers and the legal profession to limit these cases. In some situations, however, victims refuse to stay silent, and in speaking out can bring scrutiny to their employers.
This was the case for a former employee of the popular ride-sharing program Uber. The female former engineer wrote a tell-all blog post describing her experiences working for the company, which she says included frequent harassment and threats of termination when those incidences were reported. The reports began with an alleged solicitation for sex from her immediate superior back in 2015.
When she reported the issue to HR, Uber refused to terminate or otherwise discipline the manager involved, instead electing to present the engineer with the ultimatum of moving to another team outside her area of expertise or else stay under the authority of her manager. The company went on to say they expected him to give her a poor performance review. This culminated in the manager threatening to fire her as a result of her complaints.
Obviously this is an extreme example of the kind of harassment Alberta employees sometimes face in their workplaces. However, any incident of workplace harassment is intolerable in modern Canadian society. Anyone who feels as though they have been treated the way this Uber employee was may benefit from taking steps to approaching the appropriate authorities. If internal human resources are unable or unwilling to address the issues, legal support is also available in the form of experienced employment attorneys.
Source: The Huffington Post, "Ex-Uber Employee Describes Sexual Harassment While Working At Company", Chloe Tejada, Feb. 21, 2017
On behalf of Ridout Barron posted in Employment Law on Thursday, February 23, 2017.
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