It’s not just that Ghomeshi was a sexual harasser, it’s that management worked so hard to protect him from the consequences of his actions. The account by Kathryn Borel is damning — Ghomeshi didn’t rape her, he just made incessant, crude advances in the office, to the point where Borel was desperate for the administrators at CBC to step in and take action, and they didn’t.
…there were the uninvited back massages at my desk to which it was clear I couldn’t say no, during which my host’s hands would slide down just a little too close to the tops of my breasts. A year into my time on the job, he grabbed my rear end and claimed he couldn’t control himself because of my skirt. Occasionally my host would stand in the doorway of his office when no one was around and slowly undo his shirt by two or three buttons while staring at me, grinning. He once grabbed my waist from behind – in front of our fellow colleague, at the office – and proceeded to repeatedly thrust his crotch into my backside. There was emotional abuse, too: gaslighting and psychological games that undermined my intelligence, security and sense of self. Sometimes that hit harder than the physical trespassing.
No responsible HR person in the world would look the other way at that kind of behavior. The CBC did nothing.
In 2010, I went to my union to try and find a way to end this pattern of sexual harassment by Jian Ghomeshi. I had no intention to sue, or to get him fired, or even to have him reprimanded. I just needed him to stop. The union representative and my executive producer at Q, the radio show for which we worked, did nothing.
And it looks like the CBC hasn’t learned anything at all from this episode.
While I’ve had good, transparent conversations in the last few weeks with CBC human resources and the third-party investigator looking into management’s actions, I am increasingly convinced that little will change. The key players who protected Ghomeshi for so long are now seemingly now using those skills to protect themselves.
But the system that obsessively propped up Jian Ghomeshi needs to change. He is one disgusting man – but our public broadcaster, demoralized over long-running budget cuts and criticisms that it was out of touch with the public and its younger listeners, latched onto him as their savior and clearly didn’t want to let go. The CBC allowed a two-tier workplace to emerge, in which Ghomeshi didn’t have to comply with either the law or workplace norms as long as he kept pulling in listeners, and workers like me only had job security so long as we accepted his abuses of authority. I was essentially forced to either leave the show or allow my boss to lay his hands on my body at his pleasure. But since then, no manager or executive who was complicit in creating or maintaining a workplace in which Ghomeshi was allowed to operate with impunity has lost his job, let alone apologized.
It’s not an isolated few bad guys, it’s the whole system that’s broken and contrives to enable people like Ghomeshi.
It’s going to be unfortunately very interesting.
A lot of the rank and file have been speaking out against him and asking pretty good questions; the Metro Morning show here in Toronto had an entire segment on the sorts of back-channel warnings going on between women and interns that happen in this sort of situation where they’re fairly certain that management won’t do anything. And that’s even before we get into the Fifth Estate episode “The Unmaking of Jian Ghomeshi”, which really did not make the CBC management look good.
I suspect the management at least recognizes that trying to clamp down on their own people at this point would just make things look far, far worse. That said, they’re obviously in high defensive mode right now, so no, I have no particular reason to believe the management is going to learn the right lesson from this.
Hmm, the last major labour dispute at the CBC was the lockout in 2005, which was before Q started running, but after Jian started working there with >play. This makes me wonder what will happen during the next contract negotiation, since it’s more apparent than ever that the management and employees are not talking the same language.
Sorry to say this, but HR is the LAST place anyone should go to resolve a problem.
The point of HR is to protect the company from liability. They are not on the side of the workers, but the company.
Guys like Ghomeshi are either psychopaths (can’t empathize with what harm they are doing to their victims) or addicts (can’t stop getting their dopamine fix); there’s no saving them unless they want to be saved. Fuck them.
Borel did the best she could, no doubt, but for anyone else in this situation, I hope they’ll do whatever it takes to make it stop, or leave without looking back. Magic never happens and those situations never spontaneously resolve themselves unless someone does something.
Years ago I read a book called “Never Work for a Jerk” that outlines about a dozen things you can do if you’re being bullied, harassed or treated unfairly by your boss or a company.
Rule number 1 was that you boss has more power than you do; the power to help you, hurt you or simply do nothing (which can be negative, too).
Then a bunch more suggestions, but the last one was the most powerful.
Rule number (n): If none of the above works you have no choice but to quit your job and move on.
@2 Usernames
I’m sure other HR professionals will wander in, but I have to challenge your assertion that she should not have reported his behavior to HR. In the US, the way the company protects itself from liability is by following the law with regard to sexual harassment. It is not up to the victim to either leave or otherwise accommodate the harasser. It’s up to the company to provide a safe work environment. Maybe things are different up in Canadialand, but in the US, there are laws.
“Whatever it takes to make it stop” begins with documenting each and every instance of harassment and reporting it to HR, with witnesses if possible. “Whatever it takes to make it stop” does not include kneeing the guy in the groin or slapping him in the face — that will get her fired in a heartbeat.
You can’t have it both ways — don’t report to HR and “do whatever it takes”.
usernames & Doc Bill – Can I move to the lovely mythical country where you dwell where anyone facing harassment at work can magically quit and find another job whenever they want? It must be so convenient for the onus of getting out of that situation to be on the victims rather than forcing the abusive assholes from stopping being horrible people or even firing them and forcing them to find new employment.
Usernames! ☞ ♭ @ #2, you have no way to know that a person like Ghomeshi is a psychopath or an addict of any sort. It is not possible to assess his psychology and to label him with any sort of mental illness from the internet. You are not his psychologist, you are not a psychologist (you may feel free to correct me) and you are not qualified to diagnose someone over the internet.
Shut that shit down now.
Also, what Ghomeshi has done is not aberrant or abnormal behaviour. It is common and normalised. That he took it to seemingly extreme levels is a symptom of a broken system, complacent and complicit with and in his actions.
Further, HR is certainly not the last place anyone should go to deal with interpersonal problems with other employees. That is the purpose of HR. They are not meant merely to protect the company from liability. I get the impression that you have no idea how HR departments are structured or work within the public sector (which the CBC, at arms-length from the Government, is). Stop spouting nonsensical ignorance. Going to her union, working with management and with HR is supposed to be the route by which an employee deals with interpersonal problems like sexual harassment in the workplace. That those people and the system failed is a clear indication that something is very wrong.
I, for one, really hope that this story and the others like it help the third-party investigators to identify and correct these problems. I have the same doubts as Borel that management will experience any penalties for the breakdown of this system, but I do have hope that the CBC can implement practices that distance management from the sort of control they seem to have had in intervening with the consequences of an harassment complaint.
_____
Doc Bill @ #3, the onus should never be on the victim to take steps to stop harassment in the workplace beyond reporting it. Anything further than that reeks of victim blaming and accepting systematic workplace harassment as the status quo. That is unacceptable.
And? The company wants to protect itself from a lawsuit, and therefore does have incentives to act responsibly to its workers. Lawsuits are quite serious and can cost institutions a lot of money.
It’s not definite that HR would necessarily help, but just because they defend the company doesn’t necessarily mean they would defend Ghomeshi. There are conflicting interests at play.
The reason to go to HR with your complaints is to get the situation documented (and if you can, make sure to get your own copy). If HR refuses to do anything, having a paper trail will make things much easier on you when you escalate.
I hesitate to comment but I’ll give a little of my experience, as a union representative.
This is a very common sentiment among victims of harassment. They don’t want vengeance or even for the workplace to change in terms of structure. They just want the harasser to stop; they want things to be they way they were supposed to be (respectful, fair, professional, etc.). There is always this faint glimmer of hope among victims of harassment that the harasser doesn’t know, doesn’t understand, isn’t doing this on purpose, it’s a misunderstanding, a personality conflict, etc. And then, you have to convince HR/the employer that it isn’t a personality conflict.
The problem is, it is a rare instance of harassment where the behavior is unintentional. I speak here from experience representing workers. The harasser knows what they are doing, they are doing it on purpose and they won’t stop. Getting them fired is the only way to solve the problem. Ghomeshi never thought grabbing a producer’s hips and mimicking sex was acceptable office behavior. It’s not something he saw Rick Mercer, Evan Solomon or George Stroumboulopolos do. Sometimes in lieu of firing, if the organization is big enough, the harasser can be transferred to a different department. But, in this case, it wouldn’t be Ghomeshi whose career was derailed by a transfer to a less popular show. The show they worked on was called “Q with Jian Ghomeshi” after all. The writing had to be on the wall for Borel: put up and shut up.
Well that is shitty. What if you like your job, except for the abusive boss part? What if the pay is pretty good? What if the work you are doing is fulfilling and important? I’ll say, No Thanks, to that advice. That is the kind of advice that allows abusers to get away with it for so long, because many will think it is easier to just quit than to hold them accountable.
Indeed. It’s like there’s a sort of…system of social strictures and mores which focus on supporting people who sexually assault others.
I wonder if there’s a name for that?
#6, Thomathy, Such A ‘Mo
And yet, the world is full of people who’ve claimed that the HR department at their place of work is not there to help them, and is generally somewhere between useless and actively unpleasant. Why do you suppose they all say this?
The system here did not fail. It did exactly as it was meant to do; keep the star employee in place.
@12 anym
That’s a little bit of confirmation bias you got going for you. You only see those instances where HR didn’t intervene effectively. You never see the instances where HR did intervene effectively. The reason you know about the bad outcomes is because they’re not normal. Dog bites man – not news. Man bites dog – news.
I have a relative who works in HR, and I can tell you that her company takes sexual harassment complaints very, very seriously. And, in fact, her employer (the second largest in the area) recently fired a senior level vice president because of harassment complaints. I’m sure it’s quite the same all over the country. You just don’t hear about it because it’s dealt with internally, without bringing the press into it.
Please don’t fall prey to the “what I see is all there is” heuristic.
They’re still trying to cover up their cover up:
And for all those saying “just quit” I’d like to point out what Kathryn Borel said about that:
Only when nothing changed after her report, only when her life and health deteriorated so badly that she could no longer survive there (binge drinking, spending days in bed), only when they told her to suck it up because the management was going to stand behind Ghomeshi did she finally quit. And she ended up having to leave her country to do it. That’s a pretty high price for her to pay for the crimes of another.
OK as an outsider to these kind of stories it looks to me like it was going to end in this kind of end eventually. This is not 1850 or 1980 there are now many outlets looking for just this kind of thing. It is a good story for increasing audience for news business. There are political opportunities in these stories for those looking advantage. There are many opportunities for leaks and little to discourage leaks. There are many actively looking for dirt as is the public.
There are also pro bono legal services available that will gladly support these issues.
any management or prominent individual that thinks that they can keep this stuff quiet indefinitely is living in a fantasy.
In the scramble for eyeballs in the 24 hr news cycle and the internet news story competition scandal sells and the worse the better. it looks like the question that they should be asking themselves is not if this becomes public but when this becomes public.
uncle frogy
Sorry, the first quotation is from the Globe & Mail.
#13, Kevin Kehres
Quite.
Perhaps the only reason we’re hearing about this harassment complaint is because it wasn’t dealt with correctly, as presumably happens almost everywhere else, almost all the time. It must be practically a thing of the past!
Usernames @#2
Based on my training from HR as an employee and a manager at a major technology company in California, I would say that’s exactly the position of HR. HR is the last resort. The first resort is the employee’s manager. If an employee goes directly to HR before talking to their manager, they may be referred to their manager. If an employee ends up going to HR after talking with their manager, then things are probably serious for both the harasser and the manager. If the manager goes to HR, then things are serious for the harasser.
HR serves many purposes in a company. Protecting the company from litigation is only one of them, though it is an important role. Do keep in mind that a “company” includes the employees so it’s not necessarily a this side, that side proposition. Not all companies recognize this, of course, but some do.
Kevin Kehres @ #4
As I recall, the employee doesn’t need any documentation or witnesses to initiate a discussion about a harassment issue with their manager. The manager is then responsible for investigating the complaint, trying to resolve the issue, and documenting the situation. Of course, an employee is free to document incidences and gather witnesses, which can be helpful for the manager, as well as making their case should they need to. Managers are required to document persistent issues for the purposes of engaging HR in disciplinary actions such as termination.
Incidentally, managers are required to investigate a complaint even when they are specifically asked not to do anything, told confidentially, or told about the situation outside the work place.
Needless to say, mileage may vary depending on the circumstances. There have been lots of harassment issues in technology startup companies, even though these practices should be well understood by the people starting these companies.
anym @ #12, please! I really don’t appreciate the inference you’re making that implicates me as being dismissive of the problems victims of harassment (indeed, sexual assault) have with their HR departments in dealing with their harassers. What HR is meant to do and what HR may or may not be doing are two different things. HR is the place where an employee should go for a resolution to workplace harassment. That it fails, however often it does (and I believe it to be often and even in some cases systematically), does not change the fact that a person should go to HR. Investigations like the one we are now seeing into the CBC will uncover the faults of HR (and others) in this case. There are documents (or will be traces of documents, if any were illegally deleted or destroyed) that will give proof to the fact that the allegations against Ghomeshi were systematically ignored. There are laws surrounding these sorts of things. If HR (or any part of that system) fails, there are way to, at a minimum, hold them accountable. We are already seeing emails regarding this incident being published in national newpapers that contradict the PR story that the CBC has given, emails that give the lie to their insistence that they investigated these claims internally and found there not to be a problem.
And to the point that the system did exactly what it was meant to do, I do not believe that. The system in place that was meant to protect and help employees was, it is beginning to appear, systematically undermined to protect Ghomeshi. There were, if you will, two systems in place and two different interests at stake.
Don’t ask me rhetorical questions as if I’m not fully aware that victims are failed at their workplace by HR in cases like this. It’s insulting and I don’t care for what such a rhetorical question insinuates about me: that I don’t believe in a rape culture, that I don’t believe that victims are often failed by systems that are meant to protect them. I don’t believe that HR departments are infallible or incorruptible. In this case, there was, it seems, a systematic effort by management to undermine the HR process, I’m not sure it failed so much as it was made toothless and ineffectual. The system that worked exactly like it should was rape culture.
Usually the first place to go is HR or your union rep. In Canadian provinces if they do not deal with the issue they can then go their workers compensation board who are required to investigate promptly. The bullying legislation is relatively new in most provinces and is not as well known as it could be. Part of this is because of the failure of the corporations systems for dealing with harassment and bullying. I have known people who have reported things and been told “But I know him he wouldn’t do anything like that”.
Kevin Kehres #4:
Laws regarding sexual harassment and bullying are similar up here in Canada. If company management doesn’t take reports seriously and refuses to investigate them with due diligence, there is hell to pay. Each province differs slightly in the terms and penalties, but generally speaking a hostile workplace is ripe soil for very costly lawsuits.
The people bad-mouthing HR in this thread need to keep in mind that the HR and union systems failed in large part because of Jian Ghomeshi’s celebrity status. I have no idea how effective HR is in dealing with lower-level harassers – being male, I’ve had the privilege of never needing to interact with my employers’ HR systems in that way – but the case of Ghomeshi, as with Cosby, is complicated by the fact that the very powerful (by wealth, celebrity, or both) are very hard to bring to account by any means, because there are too many people (including, in this case and probably many others, the victim herself) whose own livelihoods are dependent upon the star’s whims.
The HR department absolutely should not be excused here regardless – “the only way for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing” – but that it failed to rein in Ghomeshi’s isn’t, in and of itself, evidence that HR is generally useless.
re DocBill@3:
I assume/hope you presented that as, “The Advice to avoid”. The the book took a totally wrong direction, and is an example of the flaws in the system.
That final (n) rule, you quoted, was clearly “powerful” at victim blaming.
OMFG, I knew it. So many women in the other threads about that fuckface called this too.
Godfuckingdamnit.
Fuck him, fuck the CBC, and every fucking person shielding and defending them. Just…ugh, fuck it all.
(Note: IANAL. But I grew up with decades of dinner table conversation with one who specialized in labor law.)
The reason you go to HR is the same as the reason you keep a journal or other record of every incidence of harassment or bullying: to create evidence. The standard strategy/escalation for such things is:
0. Clearly tell harasser/bully to knock that shit off. (I call this step zero, because not everyone is comfortable with confrontation, and may reasonably choose to skip this step.)
1. Report incident to harasser/bully’s manager.
if that gets nowhere
2. Escalate to HR.
if that gets nowhere
3. Sue the company.
Step 3 here requires evidence to win. Evidence consists of a log of each incident. Time-stamped files or handwritten/dated log books are admissible in court, and generally believed by judges (especially if there are witnesses to pieces of the action or aftermath, or who have similar claims). All that makes for a decent case against an individual.
But for the company to be held liable, you need a report to HR. If you never filed a report (or series of reports), then the company’s defense attorneys are going to say the company never knew about the problem and how could they do anything about a problem they had no notice of?
Yes, it’s best if HR actually does their job (and most do). But if they don’t, you still need to have spoken to them if you intend to lay any blame on the organization as a whole and not just the individual.
The problem is no one wants to sue their employer. Fortunately, it’s rarely needed.
But keep records anyway, just in case.
I notice the Guardian web site is not allowing comments on this article. I am saddened by this while completely concurring with the Guardian’s decision. Do we need any further confirmation of the effects of misogynists on civil discourse?
I have worked for small companies where the HR “department” is one person, or is outsourced. The way HR is spoken about here is odd, like it’s always this big, separate department or something.
Doc Bill, #3:
This is … precious. And victim-blaming. and bootstrappy.
That absolutely does not apply if you are trying to work in the very small pond that is broadcasting entertainment media in Canada. It DOES NOT WORK. Have you ever heard the saying, “you’ll never eat lunch in this town again?” It applies HEAVILY to people working in entertainment. You have to play nice, because your reputation matters, down to the last gram.
So this is how it works – you want to move on, you have to have the goodwill of your supervisors, your boss, the star you’re supporting. if you don’t have it? you’re not going anywhere. If this sounds a lot like being a household servant in 19th century England where your career in service was ended if you were dismissed without references? there’s a reason for that.
Listen, if you think Jian Ghomeshi is the only man in the whole country who ever used his position in the entertainment industry to exploit and harass women who were utterly dependent on his good will to advance in the career they want, I’ve either got news or an exciting investment opportunity for you. He is far from the only sleazy, abusive, sexually violent man in entertainment in Canada. He’s just the only one who has been this publicly exposed.
I’ve seen the cost of lawsuits as a threatening bit of recourse mentioned twice. That cost (social and monetary) is most often borne by the harassed person than any corporation. There is a distinct power differential involved there.
marilove @ #27, because in this case it is. I also work for an agency of a Government in Canada. These are enormous corporations often with connections to a Ministry of Human Resources. This is obviously not the way it is everywhere.
I don’t think anyone believes that an HR department is always a large and distinct entity within a corporation.
So, I went thru this shit (getting grabbed at work by a manager) and went to HR. They made it horrible ( blamed me, leaked the info, I was shunned). But this was before recording devices and common knowledge (well, women knew, but men didn’t want to know) that sexual harassment was a problem.
My advice to young women now is to FIRST: call or go to the police and report sexual assault. THEN: call HR and tell them the police have been informed and they are coming to take statements. Fter all, just because a crime takes place at a company, doesnt mean that they are a sovereign country. The laws are in effect inside the company walls just as they are outside. Any unwanted intentional touching is assault.
Filing an assault charge takes it to a whole new level, and makes the HR person the good guy to management (everyone wants their help) instead of the bad guy when they have to bring the hammer on their buddy. And it can’t be brushed aside. And legally, they can’t punish the person who reported. Record everything you can on video/audio/notes.
As has been stated on this thread, the harassers act intentionally. There is no way to deal with this quietly except by having the harrassed take responsibility for being harrassed.
ceesays @ #28, I was thinking about that very thing this morning. I think people forget sometimes that Canada is a country with a population of only 33 million people and that almost 7 million people (yes a 6th of the whole population of Canada) live in the GTHA (Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, a two hour drive at most in any direction from downtown Toronto to the boundary). This is a small country, with close communities of people in businesses like entertainment. You cannot escape men like Ghomoeshi in an industry like that, in a country this small.
sezit @ #31, It’s not always possible or practical for a victim to go to the police. For many reasons, not least of which is the fact that the police barely do anything about rape, a victim might be discouraged from going to them. Heck doing so may alienate them or otherwise threaten their careers.
I don’t think that there is a blanket bit of advice that can be given to anyone who might face workplace harassment (and what about things a victim might deem less severe like bullying, racism, homophobia, etc.?) that will fit well with all possible situations.
Keeping documentation is a good idea. Going to someone in authority over these situations, or someone with authority who can be trusted, are good ideas. There isn’t one good way to deal with workplace harassment, perhaps the police are an option, but they cannot be the only option.
Here’s The Fifth Estate report on Ghomeshi that bryanfeir mentioned at #1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV2wzubgh1M
I love The Fifth Estate and its crew.
Thomathy, perhaps another option would be the provincial workers compensation offices. WorkSafe BC (I think it’s called WCB in Alberta, the names vary) takes enforcement and regulation of work environments very seriously, and that includes bullying and harassment. A report to them isn’t a bad place to begin, because they can also advise a worker on their rights within the workplace as per the provincial Employment Standards Act.
jrfdeux, mode d’emploi, those are other options too. In Ontario you might go to the Ministry of Labour or the WSIB (Workplace Safety and Insureance Board, maybe, though may not apply) or the HRT (Human Rights Tribunal) …there must be another agency that I’m forgetting.
Well, HR is certainly the last place you should go at my company. It’s shitty and illegal the way they utterly fail to handle things, but there it is.
My former employer, I’d have avoided HR. The top two people were utterly incompetent idiots. By some freak accident they had some competent underlings, but they tended to can them as soon as they got dangerous.
For events at a national corporation such as the CBC or even a large company that cares about its reputation, calling one’s Member of Parliament, especially if that person is in the opposition party, can produce wonders of cooperation.