Back to basics: where do workplace human rights come from?

When I started this blog last week I intended to start from "the beginning" by setting out a general primer on workplace human rights law for readers who weren't particularly familiar.  But, then came along some interesting items in the news that I wanted to respond to right away so I got a bit off track.  So, here, I'm going to get back to the basics.  My starting point is to talk about the title of this blog -- Human Rights in the Workplace -- and set out just where these rights come from.

Human rights legislation in Canada generally prohibits discrimination in relation to particular areas that fall within the public domain: employment, services and housing are the three biggies.  In this blog, I am focusing on the area of employment but many of the principles I will be discussing will apply, to some extent, to those other areas as well. 

Workplace human rights is a simple way of referring to the whole host of human rights protections, procedures and remedies that are available to employees under various pieces of legislation in Canada.  The legislation generally consists of the following:

• applicable provincial human rights code
• Canadian Human Rights Act
• provincial and federal labour codes
• provincial employment standards act
• provincial workplace safety and health act
• provincial workers' compensation act

With the exception of provincial and federal human rights legislation which operate mutually exclusive to one another (more on this in a minute), some of the above laws may apply at the same time to a given fact situation.  As an example, an employee might file a claim under provincial employment standards legislation saying she quit her job (because she was sexually harassed) but is still owed wages from her employer and she might also file a complaint under the provincial human rights legislation alleging that she had to quit her job (for which she is owed the wages) because of sexual harassment she was enduring. Because human rights legislation is considered "quasi-constitutional" it will take precedence over and influence the interpretation of other pieces of legislation.

In terms of that mutually exclusive concept I raised above, there is a jurisdictional division in Canada in relation to human rights legislation.  The Canadian Human Rights Act applies to workplaces that are regulated by the federal government while the provinces deal with all other workplaces that operate within a given province.  Workplaces covered by the federal Act include:

• the federal government
• arms of the federal government such as the RCMP and Canada Post
• Crown corporations
• chartered banks
• inter-provincial transportation such as airlines and rail lines
• telecommunications
• unions that fall under the Canada Labour Code

Some examples of businesses that fall under provincial human rights legislation include:

• provincial, local and municipal governments
• credit unions
• retail stores
• restaurants
• hospitals
• schools

Provincial human rights commissions have no authority over federal employers.  To determine which human rights law applies, you have to think about who regulates the employer in question. So, as an example, employees working at Canada Post who feel they have been discriminated against must address their concerns with the Canadian Human Rights Commission under the federal Act.  But, an employee of a dental office, for example, would address their human rights issues with the relevant provincial commission. 

So, that, in a nutshell, is where workplace human rights in Canada come from.  In my next post, I'm going to discuss what legal protections employees have under human rights law.

Comments

[Ross Eadie]

This blog topic is very instructive. In teacher negotiations, there are arbitration decisions I have had concerns about as well as some collective barganing provisions with various school divisions. These concerns are related to third party rights for students. Given your blog, I assume it falls under the provincial human rights code.