Human Rights Trial - Fall 2020 Assignment

Alice works with Vincent at CRX Company on the production line.Alice has known Vincent for many years and he is a real joker and a bit of a flirt.He is happily married with two young children. Alice is married to Mary.They haven't advertised that fact, because they are private people.Vincent knows. Mary also works at CRX, but in the office.

Because Alice and Vincent have worked at CRX for so long, they thought they knew practically everyone there.Now with the recent purchase of the new division CRX has a lot of new faces.Some of the new faces are Susie, the HR Manager, Frank, a new manager in Accounting and Carl who joined the production line.

Lately, Vincent is afraid to be alone with Susie.He feels that she is too interested in him.She is there at lunch time asking him if he can fill her in on the production line gossip.Then if he says there is none, she asks point blank whether she can join him for lunch.And if he says he has other stuff to do, she asks what.She doesn't leave until Vincent tells her that he doesn't have time for her today.Susie says she just wants to keep up on office gossip to allow her to do her job better, but Vincent is doubtful. She makes the schedules and lately his schedule matches hers 6 times out of 10.He is starting to be bothered by this.

Mary is told to work with Frank.At first Frank was very friendly, but Mary thinks he found out that she is a lesbian. He saw her kissing Alice goodbye in the car and since then he hasn't been as friendly.When Mary tried to bring it up he told her to drop it and said that he'd just got a lot of work on his plate.But Mary is not so sure.There was a picture in the paper the other day of an anti-gay protest and she thought she saw Frank in the picture, standing to the side.

Carl in production is worried.The new trainer, Todd, that Susie hired is making remarks about everyone on the production line.For him it is his race, that he should never have left his native country for Canada. To Vincent, it was how well he stands on one leg - he only has the one leg, one is a prosthetic. To Dexter, it was the fact that he is gay.Todd said that he liked all of Dexter's rainbow colors.Dexter often word GAY PRIDE

t-shirts. Carl has spoken to Vincent about approaching Susie in HR but Vincent is reluctant to go.Carl can't understand why. The Company had held a harassment training session just a month ago.In fact, Susie had been the trainer. Vincent tells Carl that he can go himself, but Carl is afraid to, as he hasn't passed his probationary period.

Two months later and things have gotten worse.Todd is now a permanent employee.The company is switching to a new type of machinery for the production line and Todd is in charge of making sure that the "line" is trained. Todd's remarks to the employees on the line haven't stopped. In fact, they have gotten worse.Carl and the guys will admit he is a good trainer, but his attitude and comments are making things uncomfortable for them.To top it off, they have all noticed that Susie really likes Vincent.And the guys have started kidding Vincent about it.Vincent is more than embarrassed.

Meanwhile in the accounting office, Frank is not speaking to Mary except when he needs to instruct her.He is disappointed in her as he'd been told Mary was knowledgeable in the accounting system and it appears, she wasn't. It's become very noticeable in the office.Mary is feeling stressed and her work is poor and doesn't improve, even with additional training.

Finally Alice, Mary's spouse, has had enough.Alice makes an appointment to see Susie about what is happening with Mary and Frank.

Mary doesn't know that Alice has gone to see Susie and Alice has asked Susie not to tell her. Susie decides to investigate.She calls Frank to her office and speaks to him.She asks him how things are going with Mary.He tells her that he is very disappointed. Mary's work is really no good.She has been given several chances but she doesn't seem to be catching on.He has given her all kinds of instruction and it's not worked. He's even verbally warned her. He would like to terminate her employment.Frank brings samples of Mary's work and clearly there is a problem. Susie doesn't interview Mary as Alice asked her to keep things quiet.She tells Todd about the situation, as she believes that he is HR and a good confidante.

Todd, who now knows that Mary is Alice's spouse, begins to tease Alice and says that she should be trained with Dexter.But then it gets worse.Todd tells Alice's supervisor that she is not catching on with the training.The supervisor tells Alice that there may not be a place for her on the line if she doesn't put more effort into the training and no improvement is seen.

Alice goes back to Susie and tells her that she is lodging a formal complaint against Todd for what he has said to her.Alice also mentions that Todd has been insulting to everyone on the line.Susie says that she will investigate.Susie calls Todd in and asks him why people are complaining about him. He tells Susie that they are only complaining because they don't understand what he is trying to teach them, and if they don't catch on they will lose their jobs. Susie pulls the training tests that the production line workers have been taking and sees that a lot of them that are doing poorly, but especially poor results from Alice, Carl, Vincent, and Dexter. The tests are based on objective production standards that have been provided by the company that has supplied the new machinery.They have been in use for several years and are noted to be valid and reliable. Susie doesn't meet with anyone but Alice in her investigation.

Susie asks to meet with her boss and recommends that Carl, Alice and Dexter be terminated.The others didn't doas poorly on the tests and so she decides to give them more time.She also recommends that Mary be terminated.

The terminations take place.

Question

Issues found in the story in relation to Human Rights - this is where you summarize any grounds of discrimination that are revealed, any other legal grounds; or the arguments/grounds why CRX is at fault