Workers face suffer sexual harassment face several additional barriers to raising a personal grievance within the narrow 90-day timeframe.
These barriers include the psychological trauma associated with this harassment however, they also include the challenges of dealing with a workplace culture that protects perpetrators of sexual harassment. Workers often have genuinely held fear that should they seek justice, they may face isolation, shame or some other form of recrimination. This has led to a situation where workplace sexual harassment is chronically under-reported in New Zealand.
The NZCTU supports the extension of the timeframe for raising personal grievances from 90 days to 12 months for cases involving sexual harassment. We also say that the same rationale for this extension equally applies to other forms of harassment.