Workplace Discrimination: Employees' Rights And Legal Protections In Canada (essay).

What is Workplace Discrimination?

Employees have some rights under workplace human rights legislation, such as the right to meaningful employment, freedom of expression, equality of opportunity, and freedom from discrimination. Specific workplace rights include safe and healthy workplace, as well as the privacy rights at work. However, when an employee's rights are ignored, the scenario is referred to as workplace discrimination. (1) To put it another way, workplace discrimination occurs when employees are treated unfairly because of protected characteristics such as age, colour, race, caste, religion, place of birth, disability, or sexual orientation. Workplace discrimination also includes acts of illegal harassment or retaliation for asserting one's rights. As the name implies, workplace discrimination is carried out in the workplace. And it can be done between co-workers or between employers and workers. And workplace discrimination can be done in several ways, both intentionally and unintentionally. It is deemed intentionally when a worker is treated unfairly at work or is denied certain possibilities that are available to other workers at the same time. It is also done indirectly by enacting any workplace policy that is discriminatory against the rights of specific workers. However, in both cases, it is unlawful since it infringes on the employees' rights, which are guaranteed by human rights provisions or employment regulations. (2)

Furthermore, after considering the discriminatory position of employees at work, it was discovered that employment discrimination has a detrimental impact on workers in terms of their job, growth, and health. As a result, the government has enacted legislation and programmes to protect employees from discrimination and support their professional development. These laws and programmes are- The Canadian Human Rights Act, the Employment Equity Act, the Federal Contractors Program, the Legislated Employment Equity Program, the Canada Labour Code, the Human Rights Maturity Model, and the Occupational Health and Safety Act. (3)

All of these legislation and programmes serve distinct purposes. For example, the Canadian Human Rights Act particularly protects employees who work for the federal government, the first nations government, or a private corporation against discrimination. The Employment Equity Act, which is federal legislation, and the Federal Contractors Program are the next in this scenario. Both seek to encourage the principle of providing equal employment opportunities to all members of the specified groups, such as women, Aboriginal and indigenous community people with any disability, and minorities in the society.(4) The Workplace Equity Information Management System is an online application designed to assist employers participating in the Legislated Employment Equity Program (LEEP) and federal contractors participating in the Federal Contractors Program (FCP) in fulfilling their obligations under the Employment Equity Act and the FCP. (5) In this sense, the Canada Labour Code covers all aspects of employment, including labour relations, workplace health and safety, and essential employment requirements such as holidays, yearly leaves, minimum wage, and wrongful dismissal. Most significantly, the Human Rights Model is a complimentary tool that assists employers in developing a workplace civil rights culture, which is useful to the protection of human rights at work. Finally, the Occupational Health and Safety Act is designed to ensure that workers' health is protected at work, and employer is considering the health factor of all the employees during work. (6)

So, by enacting all of these laws and programmes, the Canadian government is attempting to address the issue of workplace discrimination from a legal standpoint.

In the actual world, simply establishing legislation is insufficient; further efforts must be taken to safeguard employees against employment discrimination, both legally and socially. All laws and programmes must be strictly implemented from a legal perspective. The system must be properly monitored to ensure that both employers and employees are adhering to the provisions of all employment laws and programmes in the workplace. Aside from that, if there is a necessity to apply a penalty for a violation of a legal provision, the penalty should be enforced. In this way, if the legal laws are carefully followed, it will provide clarity to the other people in the organisation that they must comply with the human rights provisions and that discrimination must be avoided at all costs, or they will suffer penalties. (7)

However, strict enforcement of the legislation alone will not be enough to eliminate employment discrimination; some societal changes will be required as well. Socially it can be done in many ways such as understanding all the employers and employees that workplace discrimination is not ethically right as it affects the growth and carrier of the employees, educating all the people at the workplace about workplace discrimination, establishing a process for resolving discrimination issues at the workplace level without going to the court, Conduct team-building activities and provide all the workers and employers soft-skill training by the responsible people responsible for the implementation of employment law, to all the employers and employees regarding to compliance with the anti-discrimination employment laws. (8) 

As a result, in addition to the enactment of the laws, some further legal or social measures are required to protect Ontario workers from workplace discrimination.

References

1. Workers’ rights | National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights [Internet]. National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights. 2021 [cited 6 April 2022]. Available from: https://globalnaps.org/issue/workers-rights/`
2. What Is Workplace Discrimination? | Workplaces For All [Internet]. Workplacesforall.vermont.gov. 2021 [cited 6 April 2022]. Available from: https://workplacesforall.vermont.gov/about/what-workplace-discrimination
3. Rights in the workplace [Internet]. Government of Canada. 2021 [cited 6 April 2022]. Available from: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/rights-workplace.html
4. Welcome to the Workplace Equity Information Management System (WEIMS). [Internet]. Equity.esdc.gc.ca. 2021 [cited 6 April 2022]. Available from: https://equity.esdc.gc.ca/sgiemt-weims/emp/WeimsMaintLogin.jsp
5. Law Document English View [Internet]. Ontario.ca. 2022 [cited 6 April 2022]. Available from: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90o01
6. Preventing and responding to discrimination | Ontario Human Rights Commission [Internet]. Ohrc.on.ca. 2021 [cited 6 April 2022]. Available from: https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/policy-preventing-discrimination-based-mental-health-disabilities-and-addictions/17-preventing-and-responding-discrimination
7. Who is Responsible for Preventing Workplace Discrimination in Canada? [Internet]. ppgreview.ca. 2016 [cited 6 April 2022]. Available from: https://ppgreview.ca/2016/11/24/who-is-responsible-for-preventing-workplace-discrimination-in-canada/