Human Rights at Work
Differential treatment in the workplace can include many actions, or failures to act, by employers, co-workers, or employment agencies. It happens when comments, decisions, policies, or behaviours place a burden or disadvantage on someone because of a protected characteristic.
This can include things like discrimination in hiring, comments made by managers or employees, or policies that discriminate against a specific protected class - like not allowing time off for religious holidays. What matters is that the employee or group is left worse off because of who they are.
Section 5(2) and (3) of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act explicitly forbids sexual harassment and harassment of any kind based on the protected characteristics. This includes discriminatory, offensive, or sexually explicit comments or jokes, inappropriate touching, and verbal harassment or bullying.
NOTE: The Human Rights Act does not protect workers from general harassment or bullying that is not linked to a protected characteristic. If an employer is bullying you for other reasons, the Act does not apply.
It does not matter when in the employment process the differential treatment happens. Discrimination can occur during hiring, through workplace practices, or at any point during employment.
Discrimination does not need to be intentional, malicious, or based on an employer’s personal beliefs. If you experience a disadvantage at work because of a protected characteristic, it may still count as discrimination - even if the employer did not mean to discriminate.
A policy that is applied equally to everyone can still be discriminatory if it creates a heavier burden for people in a protected group. For example, a “no head coverings” policy applied to all employees may disadvantage workers whose religion requires head coverings.