Order’s Up tackles harassment in Ottawa’s restaurant industry
New campaign promotes reporting tool to gather stories from local survivors
Ottawa restaurants, women’s advocates and unions are cooking up an end to sexual intimidation, harassment and assault in the industry.
The campaign, dubbed “Order’s Up,” launched this week with public service announcements and a website offering an anonymous reporting tool to gather stories from local survivors.
“One of the things that we heard in our engagement session with industry workers in March was that they just didn’t know who they can talk to,” said activist Erin Gee of the feminist Bad + Bitchy Podcast and a member of the Order’s Up Collective.
“Sometimes they don’t have a safe place within their workspace to talk to someone, whether it’s a colleague or management. It gives people the space to share their experience and kind of relieve themselves of the burden of keeping this secret.”
The website — ordersupottawa. com — offers links to practical help, but organizers will also see if trends or specific concerns emerge from the anonymous reports.
“If there’s a pattern of people reporting specific people or specific establishments, then I think that we’ll have to start looking into those more seriously,” Gee said.
“We’re creating that first step.” Organizations including union Unifor, the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women and the Sexual Assault Network are working together on the project funded through a Status of Women Canada grant.
In the wake of admissions that a high-profile local chef had sexually harassed staff, members of what became the Order’s Up Collective met in March with around two dozen staff and management members from several different restaurants across Ottawa.
Gee, a public servant, had long known industry harassment was an issue thanks to a stint as a restaurant hostess, but the local revelations “made it a lot more real.”
“It was kind of the breaking point for me because we expect that our bosses, particularly owners of an establishment, are going to be responsible, they’re going to be respectful, they’re going to treat people, their employees, like humans and that just wasn’t the case,” she said.
In October 2017, as the #MeToo movement gained momentum, Matt Carmichael, chef and partowner of high-profile restaurants Riviera, Datsun and two El Camino locations admitted he had sexually harassed three women with inappropriate comments.
A review by this newspaper of Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario records suggested similar problems have existed in much more modest kitchens, cafés and bars across the province.
Over four years, the tribunal dealt with more than a dozen sexual harassment complaints from restaurant staff. Advocates say only a tiny minority of cases are ever reported.
In their consultations, the collective heard that a major contributing factor to harassment in hospitality was the “normalization of sexualized violence,” says a release from Order’s Up.
Managers wanted to do something but didn’t know what to do in “a business based on reputation.”
Meanwhile, the “precarious” nature of the work makes it“difficult, in accessible and risky” for victims to report.
Véronique Prévost, vice-president of Unifor Local 6004, represents Bell Canada workers. She said talking to workers reporting how they routinely endured things like belittling and inappropriate touching was an eyeopener.
Research shows that women are more likely on average to have low-wage and part-time jobs and are more likely to experience harassment and violence while working.
Young, racialized, immigrant, trans and disabled people are most targeted. They feel “scared and alone” and afraid to lose good shifts or even their jobs if they speak out.
But organizers also heard positive stories of worker solidarity and restaurants that have said “no more” — even when customers are the offenders, Prévost said.
Safe workplaces do exist and they’ re the ones who post clear policies for all to see, encourage accountability and use respectful language, she said.
Making change starts with calling out bad behaviour, accessing those supports that already exist, providing prevention training and changing the response from “that’s how it is in my job” to “that’s not OK in this job,” the collective contends.
To start, it argues that businesses should believe employees who report harassment.
It also recommends creating a statement of principles or values supporting an equitable workplace and train staff and management on harassment and sexual violence.
“By giving the tools to these workers for them to deal with situations of harassment, we are going to change the workplace culture for the service industry in Ottawa,” Prévost said.
“But in order for this to work, we also need owners and managers to also step up and do what’s right.”