NEWS

CHRC releases Reporting and Investigating Mechanisms for Workplace Harassment in the Arts!

When harassment happens, who can the victim turn to? And how does an employer, engager or Board of Directors respond when harassment occurs in their workplace?

These pressing questions are explored in detail in Reporting and Investigating Mechanisms for Workplace Harassment in the Arts, now available for reference and download at www.respectfulartsworkplaces.ca.

Under the banner Respectful Workplaces in the Arts, the Cultural Human Resources Council (CHRC) engaged consultant Jeanne LeSage to take an in-depth look at these questions. Her research included identification of existing resources; review of comments from consultations with equity-seeking groups across the country; and over 40 one-on-one interviews with sector leaders including employers and cultural workers.

Her objective was two-fold:

• to identify gaps in reporting and investigating mechanisms to deal with workplace harassment in the arts; and
• to recommend steps to ensure that reporting mechanisms are available to cultural workers (especially independent artists without union affiliation); and to ensure that employers (including engagers and Boards of Directors) have the resources they need, to deal with harassment if it occurs in their workplaces.

The report has 10 recommendations, 4 directed at reporting harassment, and 6 directed at investigations.

Richard Hornsby, Chair of CHRC and of the Coordinating Committee of Respectful Workplaces in the Arts, sees the recommendations as a call to action:

“It is now up to the sector to work together and with our partners in governments at all levels to act on these recommendations to ensure that arts workplaces are safe, respectful and free of harassment of any kind.”

Reporting and Investigating Mechanisms for Workplace Harassment in the Arts has been generously funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.