Sexual Harassment Case for Rosetta
There is reasonable amount of evidence to support a case of sexual harassment against Rosetta. Rosetta's case by her description fits all the descriptions that befit sexual harassment in Canada. The first instance is seen when the co-workers ask her to describe what she did with her boyfriend the night before much to her displeasure. In yet another instance, Rosetta asserts that all of their utterances are dirty and deliberately meant for her ears even when she tries to ignore them or pretends not to be following what they are discussing. By the co-workers asking Rosetta to compare her preference for Canadian or Italian men, they are making a deliberate attempt to extract comments of a sexual nature from her which amounts to not only sexual harassment but an intrusive act into her privacy. According to Schwind, Das & Wagar (2013), sexual harassment is recognized as any act or utterance of a sexual nature at the workplace that either explicitly or implicitly affects an employee’s performance at work adversely, or creates a hostile, intimidating or offensive work environment for them. All the above acts by Rosetta’s male co-workers fit this description of sexual harassment further validating claims of sexual harassment against Rosetta.
Eva has a variety of options she is exposed to. Along with all the decisions that she opts for, Eva will need to organize for a counselling session for Rosetta who appears to have suffered emotional torture and who may develop esteem issues. This has a fair chance of success in that Rosetta needs to get her life back in order and have her self-esteem raised once again. As for disciplinary actions against Rosetta's co-workers, Eva could take up the matter with senior management of the company in the hope that the conduct of the male co-workers would be investigated, truth revealed and appropriate disciplinary action taken against them. This, however, suffers challenges of success since the main directors of the company are them who appointed Al as the supervisor and are likely to take his position as the genuine truth. Further, the fact that Rosetta cited family issues and not sexual harassment while quitting could complicate the case. As an option, Eva could report the matter to the police and initiate a prosecution against the male co-workers according to Canada’s justice legal provisions of sexual harassment. However, Schwind, Das & Wagar (2013) notes an unfortunate scenario where prosecutions revolving around sexual harassment fail to succeed based on scarcity of incriminating evidence against the culprits. As a last option, Eva could intelligently approach the male co-workers and initiate a dialogue that will let them know how hard they made life for Rosetta. This too has its own challenges as telling by what the supervisor says of the male workers, he appears to support their dirty jokes.
As a supervisor, it is incorrect to say that Al had no hand in the entire mess affecting Rosseta. His role bestows upon him the responsibility of ensuring smooth operations in his department as well as seeing to it that employees relate with respect and dignity in ways that do not affect each other’s work performance. His responsibility in the entire matter affecting Rosetta is however negated by the fact that Rosetta never reported clearly what the matter was. Instead, she simply asked for an alternative job. While understandably, it is embarrassing to report some matters to management such as those touching on one’s sex life, Rosetta had a fair chance to clarify matters even if through a friend. Al acted based on the information she got from Rosseta, which somewhat vindicates him.
Reference
Schwind, H., Das, H., & Wagar, T. (2013). Canadian human resource management (10th ed.). Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.
