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Penticton company ordered to pay former employee $15,000 for workplace bullying, sexual discrimination

$15K for workplace bullying

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has awarded a Penticton woman $15,000, after previously finding her claims of workplace bullying and gender discrimination while employed at Windward Software Inc. to be credible.

In a decision published June 16, tribunal member Grace Chen awarded the penalty related to her January judgment. The tribunal found Carol Loiselle's complaints about her time at Windward from 2009 to 2017 had merit.

The tribunal decided her allegations — that Loiselle was hit on her buttocks, held in a head lock, slapped on her hand and head, and forced to take a "love language" questionnaire, all by various male superiors and coworkers at different times — fit the description of "discriminatory."

Loiselle sought between $15,000 and $20,000 from the company "for her injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect."

"The employer never recognized the harm in their conduct by apologizing or making some other remedial efforts. As a female, she is a member of a group that has been historically discriminated against," Chen wrote in the decision.

Windward Software is ordered to pay $15,000, and "refrain from committing the same or similar contraventions."



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