Black unionized employees face real harm if excluded from the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario

Statement by the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Canada Black unionized employees face real harm if excluded from the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Canada (CBTU) is calling upon the community and the labour movement as a whole to pay close attention to two test cases currently before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. [...] On the eve of the June 2 provincial election, the CBTU is urging community and labour allies to ensure that human rights protections for all workers become a campaign issue, and that the Doug Ford Conservatives’ be held to account for the erosion of these rights in Ontario. [...] In October 2021, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that effectively ended the right of the vast majority of unionized employees in Manitoba to bring complaints to the province’s human rights commission. [...] It would be a major step backwards if Black unionized employees in Ontario lost that right.” In response to the decision, the HRTO has recently launched a process to consider whether unionized employees in Ontario should continue to have access to the Tribunal, but CBTU leaders worry that Black trade unionists may be excluded due to the lack of formal notice about the process and extremely short d. [...] “The HRTO must ensure that Black workers, and all other unionized employees facing an erosion of their rights, be able to participate meaningfully in this process and bring to bear our lived experiences of discrimination in the workplace.” CBTU Canada submitted an extension request to intervene in the proceeding in advance of the deadline on March 3, 2022 in order to give voice to the experiences.