Employer cites worker's behaviour, racists comments of his own as reason for rejection
A company’s decision not to hire a worker was because of the worker’s aggressive and inappropriate behaviour during an interview, not the worker’s race, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has ruled.
In early 2022, the worker applied for a warehouse position with Uline Canada Corporation, an industrial shipping equipment supplier in Milton, Ont. On March 10, he reported for an interview with Uline’s human resources supervisor and senior HR manager.
According to the worker, when he arrived for the interview, a man he referred to as the "Indian Manager from Human Resource” – who was the HR supervisor – asked him who he was and then refused to meet with him. The supervisor also allegedly told the worker to leave, stating that he wasn’t a good fit for the company’s culture and it didn’t hire individuals who weren’t of Indian descent. The worker also claimed that HR supervisor commented on his eyebrows being done, which the worker took as a discriminatory remark regarding his sexual orientation.
The worker filed a human rights application alleging discrimination and reprisal in employment. He sought monetary compensation of $1.2 million or the seizure of all $5.8 billion of Uline’s business and assets, along with a permanent shutdown of the company.
Job interview
After his application, the worker testified that he had sent a picture of himself before the interview, which is how they recognized him when he arrived. However, he didn’t provide any evidence of the picture or that it was delivered.
The worker also claimed that he brought an undercover person from “Revenue Canada” to the interview because Uline was only pretending to interview candidates with no intention of hiring. However, he didn’t provide the name of the person or why he hadn’t mentioned them in his initial application to the tribunal.
The HR supervisor agreed that he interviewed the worker, but said he didn’t see a picture of him before the interview, adding that he had previously interviewed the worker in 2019. He said that the worker immediately became aggressive after he asked him about his work history, asking why he wasn’t being hired and “Is it because you’re Indian and don’t want to hire people like me?”
The HR supervisor – who was born in Toronto with parents from Sri Lanka, not India - testified that the worker demanded that he “go get someone that is white to come talk to me.” He asked the warehouse distribution manager to join the interview, and the worker told the new arrival that the HR supervisor wasn’t hiring him because he was a racist who “only wants to hire Indian people.” The worker also told them that his sister worked at the Ministry of Labour and “will be hearing about this.”
Aggressive behaviour
The warehouse distribution manager and the senior HR manager both testified and corroborated the HR supervisor’s account. The senior HR manager said that she observed what she described as unreasonable and aggressive behaviour from the worker and instructed that the interview be ended. She further testified that the worker was escorted out of the building and later banned from Uline’s premises.
The tribunal found Uline’s witnesses to be clear and consistent in their testimony, whereas the worker’s account was inconsistent and, in some aspects, implausible. It specifically noted that the worker introduced new details at the hearing that had not been included in his original application, including the claims that he was accompanied by an undercover employee from the Canada Revenue Agency, who was neither identified nor produced as a witness.
The tribunal determined that the worker failed to present evidence that his protected characteristics under the Ontario Human Rights Code were a factor in Uline’s decision not to hire him. Instead, it was the worker who had made discriminatory remarks during the interview, said the tribunal.
The tribunal also dismissed the worker’s reprisal allegation, as there was no evidence that the decision not to hire him was in retaliation for asserting his rights under the code. The evidence established that the worker wasn’t hired due to his conduct during the interview, the tribunal said in dismissing the application.
