Richard Edgar and Natasha Edgar, on behalf of the Union, successfully argued that the employer was in breach of the Collective Agreement when it contracted out maintenance work. This decision ended many years of improper contracting out by the Employer which was undermining of the bargaining unit.
Employee v. Employer, 2020 BCHRT 4
In this case, Sara Hanson successfully argued that the Employer’s application to dismiss the Employee’s Complaint for having no reasonable prospect of success should be denied. The Employer argued that it had acted “objectively reasonably” in responding to the Employee’s complaint that she was sexually assaulted by her co-worker. However, the Tribunal accepted the Employee’s argument that there was very little evidence that the Employer had a suitable anti‐discrimination/harassment policy, a proper complaint mechanism, or adequate training given to management and employees. Importantly, the Tribunal also dismissed the Employer’s argument that it had fulfilled its duty to the Employee because its observations of her “day to day” demeanour suggested that she was fine, and in doing so, stated that “reliance on observations of the Employee’s demeanour harkens to harmful stereotypes about the ideal sexual assault victim who can only be believed if visibly traumatized.”