Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services
Published Friday, July 25, 2008

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A Yellowknife woman has been awarded $3,500 from a restaurant following a decision by an NWT human rights adjudicator.

The adjudicator found that the former prep cook and pizza delivery driver was repeatedly subjected to sexually offensive music and mischievous pranks by co-workers that management did little to stop.

Patricia Sherman filed a complaint with the NWT Human Rights Commission against her former employer Boston Pizza in November of 2005. The complaint was referred to a human rights tribunal in March, 2007, which launched a hearing on April 28 of this year.

In her complaint, Sherman stated that shortly after she began working at the restaurant in November 2003, she found staff were playing CDs containing sexually explicit lyrics in the kitchen.

Sherman stated she complained to the manager about the offensive music, who in turn advised staff not to play the CDs while she was around. Nevertheless the music remained an issue during her entire 21 months of employment at the restaurant.

Sherman also complained that on four consecutive days in March 2005 she showed up for work to find that her stool had been hidden from her. She had been given the stool after she told her employer that she had back problems and couldn't stand for long periods of time.

After the stool went missing altogether, she wrote a letter to her manager outlining her concerns, among them the foul CDs, the continuous use of the "f-word" by staff, and the one time a co-worker had a bad batch of dough and "came over and started rolling it into 'dough penises.'"

Sherman stated that after meeting with the manager, he told her he would ensure that her stool wouldn't be taken from her but he refused to be the "language police."

According to tribunal documents, another manager implemented a policy in spring 2005 banning the playing of CDs in the kitchen unless all staff present agreed to it.

Nonetheless, he told Sherman a couple months later that she could no longer work in the kitchen but rather "work upstairs, folding boxes." Sherman stated that the next day the manager demanded she provide him with a doctor's note regarding her bad back.

Despite providing notes from three different doctors attesting to her bad back and her need for a stool, Sherman was told in August 2005 that her kitchen job was being eliminated and that if she wanted to continue her employment at the restaurant, she would either have to work in the office or out front as a hostess. She declined and quit.

In her decision handed down June 13, adjudicator Shannon Gullberg stated that while she couldn't find any evidence that the termination of Sherman's kitchen job was discriminatory, she found the pranks with the stool and the continuous playing of offensive music during Sherman's employment at Boston Pizza was discriminatory under the NWT Human Rights Act.

"It is absolutely unconscionable that Sherman was subjected to sexually explicit music for a year and a half, and had to suffer the humiliation of having to search for a stool that was hidden from her," Gullberg stated in her ruling.

Gullberg ordered that the company that owns Yellowknife's Boston Pizza franchise, Mbotloxo Investments, pay Sherman $1,000 for the injury caused to her "dignity, feelings, and self-respect," plus $2,500 in punitive damages.

Management at Boston Pizza declined to comment. Sherman could not be contacted.