Racial discrimination in the workplace has been a persistent theme in Canada’s history as well as present-day times. The occurrence of actions and attitudes that impose a sense of one being less equal than another on the basis of one’s race in Canada’s workplace inhibits both our nation’s ability to move forward as well as strengthen unification within our country. The belief in a more egalitarian society, where one’s race and ethnic background have little to no impact on employees (or potential employees) standings within the job market, would seemingly be reinforced by the majority of Canadians, who consistently show support for Canada’s multicultural identity. Couple that with the noticeable strides Canada has made in the past several decades through legislation, in order to eliminate discriminatory practices and actions within the workplace, and one would likely assume that racial discrimination within the workplace is largely a concern of the past. However, current research supports the argument that the level of which racial discrimination occurs today is increasing, and as such it persists to be a key problem in the current workplace of the nation. In the workplace, racial discrimination is often seen with regard to uneven access to jobs, unfair selection and promotion criteria (as well as access to the means in order to meet this criteria), and workplace harassment. This paper compares similar findings of two articles; the first, Racial inequality in employment in Canada, as was published in the Canadian Public Administration (CPA), and the second, What Are Immigrants’ Experiences of Discrimination in the Workplace?, published by the Toronto Immigrant Employment Data Initiative (TIEDI).
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...rreporting of workplace discrimination and harassment (TIEDI, 2011), it’s highly arguable that for some, while their grasp on the language may be minimal, their ability to recognize and thus personally experience racial discrimination on a personal level is not affected. Racially-motivated harassment within the workplace often leaves the individual with progressively high feelings of alienation and low job satisfaction overall, adding to the strains that exist within the cracks of Canada’s multicultural base.
References
Al-Waqfi, M., & Jain, H. C., (2008). RACIAL INEQUALITY IN EMPLOYMENT IN CANADA: EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS AND EMERGING TRENDS.
Preston, V., Chua, J., Phan, M., Park, S., Kelly, P., & Lemoine, M. (2011). What Are Immigrants’ Experiences of Discrimination in the Workplace? Retrieved from TIEDI website: http://www.yorku.ca/tiedi/doc/AnalyticalReport21.pdf
Deitch, E. A., Barsky, A., Butz, R., Chan, S., Brief, A. P., & Bradley, J. C. (2003). Suble yet significant: The existence and impact of everyday racial discrimination in the workplace. Human Relations, 56(11), 1299-1324.
35 Fleras, Augie, and Jean Leonard Elliott. Engaging Diversity: Multiculturalism in Canada. Toronto: Nelson, 2002: 164.
I found myself thinking sociologically when I realized that equality in Canada is less practiced as what the Canadian Constitution Act of 1982 claims. In this constitution, it is stated that every individual should be treated equally regardless of their race, ethnicity, colour, religion, sex, age, and any disability; however, in reality, individuals experience inequality in the form of racism throughout the Canadian society. For instance, a few months ago, a black male was asked to leave the St. Laurent shopping centre by the mall securities as the position of his pants were viewed as not family-friendly but this type of fashion is normal for teenagers who are influenced by the hip-hop culture. As the man did not want to cause any trouble, he obeyed the securities but as he was escorted, the securities used unnecessary forces which caused scars and bruises to the individual. Furthermore, the black male was arrested and detained for 3 hours, then fined $65 by the Ottawa Police, and banned from the mall for 5 years. One witness stated that this was a case of racial profiling as she saw that the mall securities had no reason to assault the individual. Although many deny the existence of racism in the Canadian society, this type of inequality still largely exists. To further analyze this topic, articles written by various scholars on racial profiling in the criminal justice system and racism in the workplace in Canada will be compared and contrasted. Moreover, various sociological concepts learned from the class will be applied to explain racism. In addition, the Symbolic interactionist and Conflict perspectives will be compared and contrasted to have a better understanding of racism.
Canada (2003), the applicant alleged discrimination with respect to employment on the ground of race and colour. The Ontario Human Rights Commission recognized that employers have a duty to provide a safe working environment to its employees insofar as racial harassment should not be tolerated as it infringes the person’s basic human right to not be discriminated against. The Court determined that racial slurs and discrimination should not be tolerated in any case. Arguably, this case should have been a systemic complaint than an individual complaint even though the court cannot dismiss an individual claimant. The defense put forward, in this case, is of significance as the clean hands doctrine was applied to justify the employers’ action. However, the clean hand doctrine was dismissed as the action of the applicant had no correlation with the issue of discrimination. The employer argued that the appellant did poorly in the interview process and that his intention was not racially motivated. The Ontario Commission acknowledged that there was a problem with the documentation about race and racism. There was a lack of data to support or disprove the claim that the organization’s actions were discriminatory towards racialized persons. Additionally, it is difficult to determine who were receiving good assignments and who were not. This case reassures that a motive is not needed for discrimination to take place as the only thing that is important is the unconscious act itself is racist. Phrased differently, the motivation of the organization is
In a study, Li writes, “Healthcare team performance may be hindered due to the different cultural backgrounds of the nurses” (2014, p. 316). A report mentions that the IENs have less confidence in providing culturally competent care to the patients of the different culture due to lack of understanding of health beliefs, values and behaviors of that culture (Lampley, 2008). For instance, in Philippines, most of the decisions are made by the doctors. Nurses just follow doctors’ order in decision making (Tregunno, et al., 2009). But in Canada nurses are required to be more assertive and actively involved in decision-making and have more responsibility and accountability regarding patient care. Further, Canada is a multicultural country and
When things have commenced are they able to come to a halt? Many people in this world wonder
Before we talk about the laws that Canada has put into motion to help combat racism we must first define what racism is. The term Racism is hard to define. Racism is more then just an attitude; it is a policy or practice of persecution or domination by one group over another. Due to this explanation the word racism is not found in statutes or court decisions to the same extent as the word discrimination. Discrimination in the ordinary sense of the word means to treat a person or group differently because of prejudice. However in the legal sense this definition had been expanded to include human rights. Today the word discrimination can include concepts such as adverse effect, or unintentional discrimination, and harassment. Both discrimination and racism come from prejudice. In short prejudice means to pre-judge. In other wo...
In the United States, racial discrimination has a lengthy history, dating back to the biblical period. Racial discrimination is a term used to characterize disruptive or discriminatory behaviors afflicted on a person because of his or her ethnic background. In other words, every t...
Systemic discrimination has been a part of Canada’s past. Women, racial and ethnic minorities as well as First Nations people have all faced discrimination in Canada. Policies such as, Charter of Rights and Freedoms, provincial and federal Human Rights Codes, as well has various employment equity programs have been placed in Canada’s constitution to fight and address discrimination issues. Despite these key documents placed for universal rights and freedoms Aboriginal and other minority populations in Canada continue to be discriminated against. Many believe there is no discrimination in Canada, and suggest any lack of success of these groups is a result of personal decisions and not systemic discrimination. While others feel that the legislation and equality policies have yet resulted in an equal society for all minorities. Racism is immersed in Canadian society; this is clearly shown by stories of racial profiling in law enforcement.
Based on the preliminary research I conducted, I have been able to identify two key topic areas that are of interest to me and these include: immigrant women attaining jobs in Ontario and violence experienced by women in Canada. In regard to immigrant women attaining jobs, there are significantly higher unemployment rates and lower wages that they are faced with, in comparison to other immigrant men and Canadian-born men and women. The debate circulating around this issue seeks to answer whether gender, immigrant class, age, ethnicity and sexuality all play a role in an immigrant woman’s ability to be employed (TIEDI, 2010, p.1). Some key questions that have arisen focus on workplace policies and programs that create further disparity within the gender gap, rather than aiding immigrant women who have differing needs in the labour market. Questions posed, seek to find the contributing factors to lower wages and what can be changed in the regulations to create equity (TIEDI, 2010, p.6). As well, a study conducted by Anucha et al. (2006) examines what are the outcomes of immigrant women participating in the economy and how this varies from other males, along with the social impacts of being employed (p.5).
Looking the immigrant and non-immigrant categories, the average wage increase for immigrants is 1371 while the wage increase is 7193 for non immigrants. This further confirms existing research on the wage disparity between immigrants and non immigrants in the labour market. For example the income of females residents of Ontario between the ages of 25 to 36 were compared controlling for education, women who were visible minorities and immigrants earned on average 22848 less than females who were not visible minorities and non-immigrants who earned 39410 on average. Holding all others things constant, similar disparities were seen among males where immigrant, visible minority males earned on average 40284 less than non-immigrant males who are not visible minorities- earned 56846 on average.
Canada is a nation known for its multicultural society. In such a diverse nation many would believe equality would exist. However it does not; and it is evident in the Criminal Justice System in Canada. The racial disparity in the Criminal Justice System is the result of bias treatment of certain individuals based on their race. The selective prosecution of visible minorities, immigrants and Aboriginals has been recognized as a racial inequality and corrupted the Criminal Justice System. The unequal treatment of immigrants and Aboriginals within the justice system has become evident through various forms. Canada`s colonial past has greatly influenced the judicial system and it seems obvious that race plays a factor in many of the facets of
(Croft, Race Powerpoint , 2016). An article indicates that Canada’s aboriginal population suffers worse unemployment than America’s African-American population (Gilmore, 2015). This difference is 3% (aboriginal’s 14% rate and African-American’s 11%) but it’s more significant than that. The difference is that one third of the population barley makes ends meet while two thirds are severely struggling. Another issue in our current Canadian society is that the black race is protesting about the struggles that the Toronto community is facing. These people describe the feeling of living in Canada is at times suffocating (Renwick, 2015)This past year there have been countless news reports of police officers killing people, who happen to have black skin. This has caused the activist movement known as “Black Lives Matter”. One article states that Canadians ignore that fact that we have racism and point our fingers to other countries- specifically America. Many are not willing to admit that this problem exists (Renwick,
Race, Racism and Discrimination: Bridging Problems, Methods and Theory in Social Psychological Research Bobo, Lawrence D. Fox, Cybelle http://www.jstor.org/stable/1519832
Abstract- Racial discrimination happens all the time and most of us are unaware of it. The most common place for this to happen is in the workplace. Now people can be discriminated against because of their race, religion, or any other numerous things. Also, discrimination can occur during the job interview or even after you got the job. This paper will shoe the effects of racial discrimination and how it can be prevented. In addition there are some very important laws that deal specifically with discrimination, like the NAACP or Affirmative Action. These both will be discussed.