Saskatchewan harassment prevention unit now operational

By Angela Hall, Leader-Post

REGINA — In the wake of the province’s move to outlaw workplace bullying, Saskatchewan’s new harassment prevention unit is up and running.

Plans for the unit within the occupational health and safety division of government were announced last fall after Saskatchewan became the second province to address “personal harassment” in the workplace, such as abuse of power and bullying.

While all occupational health and safety officers have been well-versed about the expanded definition of harassment, three people who make up the harassment prevention unit have been fielding inquiries and complaints since March, said Glennis Bihun, executive director of Occupational Health and Safety.

“One of our key focuses has been on education and providing public sessions to workplaces to assist them with updating their policies to include the expanded definition,” Bihun said.

Public education sessions began over the last week with about 800 participants taking part, she said.

The expanded definition of harassment became official in October under the previous NDP government, through changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The new definition goes beyond outlining harassment based on factors in the human rights code such as age, sex and race to also include conduct that impacts a worker’s psychological or physical well-being.

The person must “know or ought reasonably know” that the conduct would cause a worker to be humiliated or intimidated.

Bihun said harassment-related inquiries to occupational health and safety appear to have spiked in 2007-08, going from about 200 annually in previous years to more than 400.

As well, occupational health and safety officers got involved with cases of alleged harassment about 57 times in 2007-08, compared to 31 officer investigations related to harassment the previous year, Bihun said.

Bihun said the year-end data for 2007-08 is preliminary, and couldn’t provide a breakdown for how many situations involved complaints of personal harassment versus complaints that fit under the old definition.

But she said the inclusion of personal harassment in the definition is clearly responsible for at least some of the increase in inquiries.

Greater awareness also leads to more calls, she said.

“I think that harassment is much more talked about than it used to be,” she said.

The division is working on updating printed resources, so sample harassment policy guidelines will include the expanded definition of harassment.

Bihun said officials are also finalizing a series of video vignettes depicting situations of harassment and what the appropriate managerial response would be.

Saskatchewan is also putting in place an independent adjudicator to hear appeals arising from harassment complaints.

Quebec was the first province to introduce provisions to deal with personal harassment.