LACK OF EMPATHY FROM A SUPERIOR DOES NOT CONSTITUTE HARASSMENT

A senior technician in architecture claims to be a victim of psychological harassment. According to the adjudicator, it is clear that the employee had grounds for being unsatisfied with his status, salary and reclassification, but it is also quite clear that none of his superiors showed any harassing behaviour towards him. At most, there seems to be a conflict which was not resolved in the way the employee wanted. Furthermore, omitting to warn the employee in advance about the reorganization of the sectors, which particularly affected him, was an error in judgement, but not an act of harassment. The fact that a superior had been inept in handling employee relations or had showed little empathy with the feelings that an important decision was going to create in an employee cannot, in itself, constitute harassment. The grievance is therefore dismissed. McGill University and McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA), DTE 2006T-960 (T.A.) Me Jean-Pierre Lussier