Denied jobs by NSGEU, woman says rights commission botched her complaint

Premium contentFrancis Campbell (fcampbell@herald.ca)
Published: Feb 23 at 8:04 a.m.Updated: Feb 23 at 8:07 p.m.Facebook Twitter More14

FOR CAMPBELL STORY:
France MacDonald is filing a human rights complaint against the NSGEU for a job she felt she qualified for but didn't receive....seen in Halifax February 5, 2021.

TIM KROCHAK PHOTO — Frances MacDonald filed a human rights complaint against the NSGEU for being denied several jobs she felt she qualified for. MacDonald is also taking the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission to court, accusing the commission of botching her complaint. – Tim Krochak

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A Dartmouth woman says the NSGEU unjustly spurned her for jobs she was eminently qualified for and that her subsequent human rights complaint against the union was unfairly dismissed.

“The bigger issue to me right now is the human rights part,” Frances MacDonald said. “If they had done their job properly, they would have found out all this other stuff (about NSGEU).”

MacDonald, 57, is retired from more than three decades of employment as a dental hygienist with Nova Scotia public health. As an active member of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union, she applied 13 times from 2011 to 2016 for a job as an employee relations officer with the union.

Despite contending that she was better qualified than several of the men who were hired for the competitions she applied for, MacDonald did not land any of the employee relations jobs that would have paid tens of thousands more than her dental hygienist position.

“I knew the people who were interviewing and I knew the people who got the jobs, I knew everybody and I knew that I was more qualified,” MacDonald said.

In a brief submitted to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, lawyer Laura Veniot of law firm Pressé Mason wrote that MacDonald noted that often the available positions were awarded to men who had less experience than she had.

MacDonald was interviewed for only one of the 13 jobs.

Veniot’s brief says that in July 2016, MacDonald was advised by Dawn Ferris, the former vice-president and director of the NSGEU, that then-union president Joan Jesome had complained about MacDonald on several occasions, saying that she was “too opinionated a woman.”

“I knew the people who were interviewing and I knew the people who got the jobs, I knew everybody and I knew that I was more qualified.”
– Frances MacDonald

Eventually, MacDonald said she had had enough and filed a complaint with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission in April 2017, alleging sexism on the part of the NSGEU in its hiring practices.

MacDonald said the first investigator assigned to her case by the human rights commission was extremely busy and confided that it could be months before she investigated the complaint.

A binding resolution conference and an offer from NSGEU that MacDonald deemed unacceptable followed.

During that time, the original investigator left her job.

“Melanie MacNaughton was appointed as investigator,” Veniot’s brief reads. “Unbeknownst to Ms. MacDonald during the investigation, Ms. MacNaughton was an activist for the NSGEU. Ms. MacNaughton never disclosed her involvement with the NSGEU to Ms. MacDonald although the NSGEU would have known of her involvement. The commission was informed of Ms. MacNaughton’s activism within the NSGEU, but it failed to appoint a new, independent investigator.”

MacDonald said she was notified twice by the commission that her case would be dismissed. She said MacNaughton took over the case in June 2018 and recommended dismissing it that August.

“The board told her to investigate further,” MacDonald said. “She (MacNaughton) spoke to Joan Jessome and a few other people and she accepted everything that they said. … I had 31 years in public health, not a blemish. She (MacNaughton) never asked me for any rebuttals. She just accepted it as fact.”

“The officer did wrong because she knew she was in conflict, the union did wrong because they knew she was in conflict, too. On top of that, the higher-ups of the commission, when they found out she was in conflict, circled around and protected her. They did wrong. It’s not just me, they (commission) are doing wrong all the time. I have the chance to shine light on what the commission is doing wrong.”
Frances MacDonald

Veniot and her law firm applied for a judicial review of the human rights commission decision to dismiss MacDonald’s complaint and it will be heard by Justice Richard Coughlan on March 29.

MacDonald “was not afforded procedural fairness throughout the process with the commission,” the Veniot brief says. “The commission then made the decision to dismiss her complaint, despite the biased investigator who did not conduct a thorough investigation.”

Veniot said in an interview that MacNaughton’s “report was unreasonable and unfair but really the bias issue is the most glaring. That’s what we are going to really focus on.”

MacDonald’s lawyer is asking the court to set aside the decision of the commission and to require the commission to appoint a board of inquiry or, alternatively, a new investigation of the complaint.

Both the NSGEU and the commission declined comment on the case while it is before the courts.

MacDonald said the human rights commission is a “broken system.”

“The officer did wrong because she knew she was in conflict, the union did wrong because they knew she was in conflict, too. On top of that, the higher-ups of the commission, when they found out she was in conflict, circled around and protected her. They did wrong. It’s not just me, they (commission) are doing wrong all the time. I have the chance to shine light on what the commission is doing wrong.”

MacDonald said all she wants is a “fair investigation” of her complaint.

“Whatever comes out of that, I’m fine with it. If a fair investigation was done, I would probably win that, I would probably be found to be right.”

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Denied jobs by NSGEU, woman says rights commission botched her complaint

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