Introduction
Human rights employment is a set of guidelines that are put in place to protect people from any form of discrimination. Human rights have a purpose that seeks to guarantee individuals equal treatment regardless of any certain identified characteristics that are normally termed as “prohibited grounds of discrimination” that in some sort of way have attracted historical bias or stereotyping in regard to employment. In any organization, employers who may include nonprofit organization have to be aware of different human rights legislation as it applies to the different practices of employments. These employment practices include recruitment advertisements, promotion, wages, benefits, workplace harassment, dismissal/termination, interviews, and hiring. As organizations continue to strive to create a better world through their missions, it is vital that they also work at creating an inclusive working environment that is welcoming and respectful of diversity in the workplace. In cases whereby some organizations may not provide such environments, then there are legislations that have been formulated to ensure that the employees are protected. This led to the creation of the Canadian Human Rights Act. The key purpose of this act is to give effective protection against any form of discrimination. It is the responsibility of the employers in any organization to ensure that no employee is discriminated against and offered equal opportunities according to Part I subsection one.
Description of part 1 of the Canadian Human Rights Act
In this part of the Canadian human rights act, the proscribed grounds of discrimination include national, or ethnic origin, race, religion, marital status, disability, sex, age or conviction for which there is some form of pardon that has been granted. In order to fully comprehend Part One, there is need to define the parameters of discrimination. Discrimination can be defined as a decision or an action that treats an individual or a group of persons negatively for various reasons that may include their race, disability or age. In some other definitions, these varied reasons are known as grounds for discrimination. According to the Canadian human rights act, there are eleven grounds of discrimination, and they may include: a conviction of which pardon has been granted, race, sexual orientation, age, sex, marital status, disability, family status and color ("Canadian Human Rights Act", 2016).
There are various instances that an individual or a group of persons can be discriminated against. The Canadian human rights act has identified seven instances that an individual can be discriminated against. All of the seven counts are based on the eleven grounds for discrimination. They include: denying some individual services, goods, accommodation or facilities, offering the individual goods and services in a manner that treat them differently or adversely, refusing to employ an individual or dismissing them unfairly, paying different wages and salaries to men and women when the organization knows that the work that they are doing are of the same value, harassing someone, and retaliating an individual who has gather in a line a grievance with the commission or a person who has filed a complaint against the employer. ("Canadian Human Rights Act", 2016).
Through the provisions of this section, federal employees and not even permitted to discriminate against all their employees. The human rights act has in fact encouraged all the employees to accommodate individuals based on the circumstances that they are in. This is typically called the duty to accommodate.
Description of how human rights act protects workers’ rights
Human rights have different roles in protecting the rights of employees. Through the human rights act, all the employers have the responsibility to deal quickly, effectively, and fairly with situations that involve any claims of harassment or discrimination. At a minimum, the human rights act forces the employers to respond to any form of internal discrimination complaints by ensuring that they have a complaint mechanism set up, take the complaint that has been received seriously, have a corporate awareness of all the aspects and acts that are considered as being discriminatory, acting promptly communicating to the complainant the actions that the organization has undertaken in its procedural mechanisms and finally offering the complainant a safe and conducive working environment("Canadian Human Rights Act", 2016).
The human rights act also notes that the lack of complaints in an organization does not necessarily depict that there are no problems in the organization. In some instances, some of the employees in the organization may come forward to complain against what they think a form of discrimination against them is as soon as this instance occurs. However, in some cases, the employees may choose to cope with the issue of discrimination especially in instances of sexual harassment. The options that the employee has chosen to deal with the issue of discrimination is determined by the tone that has been set up by the management of the organization. Some of the perspectives that the employee may have to think about include “rocking the boat” in terms of the reaction that they expect to get after reporting the issue or the alternatives that they may have if they lose their job.
Employees may have such problems since they do not believe that they would be treated equally or in a believable manner. In this instance, especially in cases where women are involved in sex harassment cases, the woman may choose to put up with the discriminatory work environment while at the same time actively searching for another job. Regardless of the circumstance that the employee may have chosen to cope with the discriminatory working environment, the human rights acts necessitate that the employer has not been relieved of its obligations to ensure that there is a safe and nondiscriminatory work environment.
Human rights act also has the role of ensuring that the employees have personal safety in cases of harassment. The workplace has the ability to cause risks to the personal safety. This may cause serious health risks and other health problems such as depression, headaches, anxiety, increased blood pressure and fatigue. Fundamentally, harassment that is as a result of discrimination may have negative impacts on the self-esteem of the employees, and the wellbeing of the employee both in the workplace and out of the workplace. If there is a reasonable cause of an employee to have some fear or violence, it is the responsibility of the employer to offer assistance by calling the police or removing the alleged harasser(Harris et al, 2014).. However, care has to be taken while removing such an individual so that certain types of harassment does not occur to the harasser. The best practice that the employer can use it to set up guidelines or policies that have to be followed consistently and effectively in similar cases that have occurred in the past or those that will occur in the future("Canadian Human Rights Act", 2016).
Role of human resource to uphold rights
In the organization, it is the responsibility of the human resource to ensure that they advise their employees about their rights in the workplace especially the procedures to follow in case they fell some harassment or discrimination. The human resource should inform all their employees that their human rights claims can be made at the same time as while they are filing their internal processes. According to Rainey, Wicks and Ovey (2014), anti-discrimination and internal anti-harassment policies sin an organization is not an alternative to filing complaints but rather their rights. Employees should know that it is the responsibility of the human resource to ensure that there are various options to resolve their disputes.
The disputes should be resolved in-house as per the policies of the organization. In the event that there are no in-house policies or procedures to follow, the employees have the other option filing the complaints under the Canada human rights commission. However, regardless of having in-house policies by the organization, the employee who has been harassed has the option of still filing the complaint at the commission.
Consequently, the human resource should not have to wait for outcomes of other processes sin the complaints policies so as to resolve the issues. The “wait and see” approach whereby the human resource has to depend on the outcomes that have been made by the commission should be avoided at all times. This is because the employee to wait or prove to the commission that some form of discrimination occurred. The conundrum in this instance is that while the employee may not be in a position to prove the allegations that they have made, there are other immense negative impacts that can be associated with this circumstance (Renteln, 2013).
The organization would be in a negative positioning that there may be a continues disruption of the allegations made and spread of rumors against the claimant thereby providing some bias in the judgment that the organization makes regarding the claim. The time that the discrimination or harassment took place and the time that the incident was reported may be years, and the complainant may suffer serious emotional and health problems. The organization may also have to compensate the claimant for the time that the claim was made to the time that commission of human rights made their decision. The other advantage of not applying the “wait and see” approach is that the organization has the best chance of ensuring that the complaint is resolved in a faster and satisfactory manner (Harris et al, 2014).
The other major role that the human resource is to apply the human rights principles in all the circumstances that involve employee complaints. In some organizations, there is a general obligation that the people in high positions have high power. This means that they may at times misuse their power and discriminate or harass the lower people in the organization. It is the responsibility of the human resource to guarantee to all the employees in the organization that regardless of their position, the human rights investigation follows a specific set of rules or meet certain basic requirements of objectivity and meet the proper application of human rights. The human resource should also ensure that a proof of intent to discriminate in some instance is not automatically a finding of discrimination, but the key question that has to be considered in the question is to whether the intent that the individual had resulted in an instance of discrimination.
Conclusion
Human rights employment are a set of guidelines that are put in place to protect people from any form of discrimination. In any organizational setting, employers who may include nonprofit organization have to be aware of different human rights legislation as it applies to the different practices of employments. These employment practices include recruitment advertisements, promotion, wages, benefits, workplace harassment, dismissal/termination, interviews, and hiring. In this part of the Canadian human rights act, the proscribed grounds of discrimination include national, or ethnic origin, race, religion, marital status, disability, sex, age or conviction for which there is some form of pardon that has been granted. ("Canadian Human Rights Act", 2016). There are various instances that an individual or a group of persons can be discriminated against. The Canadian human rights act has identified seven instances that an individual can be discriminated against. At the institute, it is the obligation of the human resource to ensure that they advise their employees about their rights in the workplace, especially the procedures to follow in case they fell some harassment or discrimination. The other major role that the human resource is to apply the human rights principles in all the circumstances that involve employee complaints. In some organizations, there is a general obligation that the people in high positions have high power. The organization may also have to compensate the claimant for the time that the claim was made to the time that commission of human rights made their decision. The other advantage of not applying the “wait and see” approach is that the organization has the best chance of ensuring that the complaint is resolved in a faster and sat factory manner.
References
Canadian Human Rights Act. (2016). Laws-lois.justice.gc.ca. Retrieved 14 March 2016, from http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/h-6/
Harris, D., O'Boyle, M., Bates, E., & Buckley, C. (2014). Law of the European convention on human rights. Oxford University Press, USA.
Rainey, B., Wicks, E., & Ovey, C. (2014). Jacobs, White and Ovey: the European convention on human rights. Oxford University Press (UK).
Renteln, A. D. (2013). International human rights: universalism versus relativism. Quid Pro Books.
Saunders, S. (2014). Oh No Canada: The Canadian mining sector's lack of response to human rights abuses abroad comes to a head. Alternatives Journal, 40(1), 26-28.
