#AndMeToo

Survivor Rights and Employer Duties in the Precarious Workplace

#AndMeToo: Survivor Rights and Employer Duties in the Precarious Workplace is a project to provide public legal education for women and gender-diverse people working in hospitality and service industry who are experiencing or at risk of experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace.

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For those who have experienced or are experiencing violence, seeking justice through legal processes and pathways can be harrowing.

 

#AndMeTo aims to do three things:

  • Inform women, gender-diverse people and service providers of the necessary steps to navigate the appropriate legal channels.
  • Work with employers in the service and hospitality industry to better inform them of their responsibilities and duties to support healthy workplace conditions.
  • Improve workplace safety by involving employers in the process.

Target Group

The target population for this project is primarily women and gender-diverse people who are in the service and hospitality industry and in particular those who are either precariously employed or who have precarious immigration status.

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Aligning with our vision to work alongside communities to create autonomy and self-determination for women and gender diverse people, informed by their diverse experiences, needs, and choices, the Clinic has chosen to provide public legal education on sexual harassment in the service and hospitality industry because precariously employed individuals, especially women and non-binary people, are disproportionately affected, and barriers to support are frequently insurmountable.

Barriers Include:

  • Living in poverty or paycheck to paycheck
  • Lack of knowledge of the law and their rights
  • Difficulty or unable to access formal employment
  • Fear of being unable to find other employment
  • Fear of being ostracized in their community
  • Fear of deportation
  • No available human resources department to contact

Characteristics of Precarious Employment include:

  • Being paid in cash
  • Workers with employer-specific work permits
  • Temporary agency workers
  • Seasonal workers or casual workers
  • Working on a term or contract
  • Self-employed or independent contractors
  • Working multiple jobs
  • Working for low wages
  • Unemployment
  • Working as a student or volunteer

Those who fall into other categories also face barriers to reporting sexual harassment in and outside the workplace, include

  • Women and gender-diverse people who are facing poverty,
  • Immigrants and newcomers, Indigenous populations,
  • LGBTQ2S+,
  • Single mothers,
  • Women and gender-diverse people experiencing homelessness,
  • Women and gender-diverse people experiencing unemployment,
  • Women and gender-diverse people with disabilities,
  • Women and gender-diverse people in conflict with the law,
  • Racialized populations,
  • Women and gender-diverse people who have experienced violence and/or sexual violence.

 

 

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EMPLOYER TRAINING

You must protect employees’ rights to work in a safe environment free from gender-based violence.

The Clinic offers free training to address and prevent workplace sexual assault and violence.  To learn more about our 1.5-hour trauma-informed, culturally appropriate training, please download our flyer below or email [email protected] to learn more.

Additional Information

Main Objectives

 

  1. Provide public legal education (PLEI) resources for workers who are experiencing or at the risk of experiencing sexual harassment in the service and hospitality industry in both English and French. Materials to also be available in multiple languages so women and non-binary folx will have more confidence in their ability to understand the systems they are navigating and areas of reprieve.
  2. Provide educational workshops and training for workers in their communities in their chosen languages.
  3. Provide sexual harassment training for employers in the service and hospitality industry to inform and educate about the responsibilities and duties of employers while creating relationships that inform systems change and better workplace conditions.
  4. The creation of webinars in English, French, Urdu, Punjabi, Spanish, and Arabic to be shared through CREVAW’s and Clinic’s website.
  5. Provide training and resources for service providers, including lawyers, paralegals, social workers, settlement workers, VAW workers, and non-profit sector actors in the community to assist women and genderqueer folx experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace.

 

 

Interpretation

Navigating the legal system is difficult for women and gender-diverse people who speak English as their first language. For those who do not, it can be challenging and feel impossible.

Non-English speakers face compounded barriers when trying to access support. This project responds by ensuring our materials and public legal education are available in multiple languages so those using them have more confidence in their ability to understand the systems and services they are using.

Contact Us

To learn more or to become involved in the program, please contact us.

#AndMeToo: Survivor Rights and Employer Duties in the Precarious Workplace is funded by the Department of Justice. We are proud to work in collaboration with the Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children (CREVAWC) at the University of Western

 

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