Grievance Case Summary - G-668

The Grievor is employed by a community police services section. On September 10, 2008, she signed a memorandum of understanding with her immediate supervisor to work part-time. On June 2, 2009, she signed a second agreement with her supervisor to receive acting pay for having worked part-time as a corporal for six months.

The Alleged Harasser replaced the Grievor's immediate supervisor as of August 4, 2009, as the Officer in Charge of the section. Among other things, the Alleged Harasser allegedly refused to ratify the agreement entered into between her predecessor and the Grievor and requested that the Grievor's work be more closely supervised.

On November 20, 2009, the Grievor filed a harassment complaint against the Alleged Harasser. This complaint included four allegations. The Human Resources Officer (HRO) concluded that the allegations did not meet the definition of harassment, and accordingly dismissed the complaint at the screening stage.

The Grievor filed a grievance against this decision. During the early resolution phase, the parties reached a partial agreement that Allegations 1 and 2 would be dealt with through the grievance process. However, neither party addressed the other allegations in their submissions on the merits and only dealt with the allegations agreed upon.

The Adjudicator indicated that there had been an agreement on Allegations 3 and 4, which was not the case. He noted that the Office for the Coordination of Grievances (OCG) asked the parties to send him their submissions on Allegations 1 and 2 only, which was not the case either. The Adjudicator concluded that, since the Respondent was the HRO and the Acting Responsible Officer, there was an apparent conflict of interest. Therefore, the Respondent should not have made the final decision to dismiss the complaint but should have instead referred it to the Deputy Commissioner for a final decision. However, since there had been a partial agreement, the Adjudicator concluded that it was not necessary to refer the complaint for a new decision. He accordingly denied the grievance.

The Grievor challenged the decision of the Level I Adjudicator by emailing the OCG, but did not provide the duly completed grievance form. In her email, she challenges the Level I Adjudicator's conclusion that there was agreement on the majority of the allegations. The Grievor did not mention Allegations 3 and 4 but stated that there had been no agreement on Allegation 2. The OCG sent this email to the Respondent, indicating that it constituted the Grievor's written submissions.

The ERC found that the Respondent was required to assess the allegations not only one by one, but also as a whole. By not considering the allegations as a whole, she did not attempt to find out whether the Alleged Harasser had participated in a series of undesirable incidents over a given period. The ERC also found that the Respondent should have examined the allegations from the perspective of the concept of abuse of authority before dismissing the complaint at the screening stage. Finally, the ERC found that the OCG had failed in its duty to act fairly by not asking the Grievor to provide her submissions at Level II or, at the very least, by not verifying with her to see if her email constituted her submissions.

The ERC recommended that the grievance be allowed.

The Commissioner's decision, as summarized by her office, is as follows:

[Translation]

The Grievor filed a grievance challenging the Respondent's decision to dismiss her harassment complaint at the screening stage.

The Level I Adjudicator dismissed the merits of the grievance.

The Commissioner accepted the ERC's recommendations, and found that the Respondent had not followed the policy in Chapter XII.7 of the Administration Manual when processing the Grievor's harassment complaint. The grievance is allowed. However, given the time that has passed since the complaint was filed, the Commissioner did not refer the matter back to the screening stage. The Commissioner sincerely apologized to the Grievor for the RCMP's failure to process her harassment complaint in accordance with the Treasury Board Policy on Prevention and Resolution of Harassment in the Workplace, and Chapter XII.7 of the Administration Manual.