Maria Carravaggie worked contracts as a social worker in Nunavut for 13 years. All of that abruptly came to an end, she says, in 2019 after she reported a superior for harassment. (Photo courtesy of Maria Carravaggie)
Social worker says she was blacklisted from GN for filing grievance
Maria Carravaggie says supervisor tried to make her live with a client’s soiled mattress in her home
A social worker says she was blacklisted from working for the Government of Nunavut for reporting a supervisor who tried to make her store a client’s soiled mattress in her home.
Her case is getting a hearing in the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, where she lives now, after she said the GN, Nunavut Employees Union and Public Service Alliance of Canada failed her.
She provided pages of documentation to Nunatsiaq News that detail her harassment complaint, as well as the government and the unions’ responses.
In 2019, Carravaggie had worked 13 years for the Department of Family Services on a casual basis and was coming to the end of a contract in Baker Lake when a new supervisor named Barbara Humenjuk arrived.
Carravaggie said that on July 18, 2019, Humenjuk ordered her to remove a soiled mattress from a foster home and place it in her own apartment.
Carravaggie refused, saying the GN had a storage area for this purpose.
The next day, Carravaggie had to take emergency work-related travel to Coral Harbour. In the flurry of packing, she said Humenjuk told her to leave her keys with her. So she did.
Carravaggie returned home late on July 23.
“Upon entering my apartment, I was shocked and traumatized to find a used, soiled mattress in my bedroom,” Carravaggie said.
She said she lugged it out to the hallway and requested an immediate transfer from Baker Lake, but that didn’t happen. On July 31, 2019, she contacted the Nunavut Employees Union, which filed a grievance on her behalf against the GN and Department of Family Services.
On Aug. 5, Carravaggie said Humenjuk went to her home, “yelling and pounding furiously” on her door.
She said Humenjuk then dragged the mattress back into Carravaggie’s apartment, saying “I told you to put the mattress in your apartment.”
This is the mattress Maria Carravaggie says a supervisor forcibly placed in her home in 2019 while she was working as a social worker in Baker Lake. (Photo courtesy of Maria Carravaggie)
Carravaggie said she again removed the mattress from her home after her supervisor left.
She sat down for an interview with an official from Family Services and an employee relations officer with the Department of Human Resources on Aug. 9, 2019.
Carravaggie provided a transcript of that interview to Nunatsiaq News.
“The mattress [was] a symbol of power,” she told them. “In my own private domain, it really crossed the line with everything I stand for. She gave me the message, ‘I can do anything to you. You’re gonna take it.’”
Carravaggie received a letter from the Department of Family Services on Sept. 9 saying the matter was dealt with internally and the investigation was closed.
“Steps have been taken to ensure that the expected workplace behaviour is in line with the Nunavut Public Service Code of Values and Ethics,” states the letter from the department’s executive director.
Carravaggie was set to return to Arviat for another contract in October. Everything was booked, she said. But at the last minute, the GN said there was no accommodation.
“There was accommodation,” Carravaggie said in an interview. “I had a hotel and everything arranged.”
She said she never got a contract to work in Nunavut again, and she believes it’s because of the grievance she filed.
“I didn’t expect them to turn against me,” she said, expressing some regret over the effect that she said standing up for herself has had on her career.
“I should never have complained. I should have said it’s OK for Barb to go into my apartment and put a filthy mattress in my bedroom. It’s OK to be violated. Because once I put a complaint in, I never got back [to Nunavut.]”
Carravaggie works now for a shelter in Peterborough, Ont.
A Family Services staff contact list shows Humenjuk in the same position in Baker Lake as of August 2020, but she is no longer employed with the GN today, according to the Department of Human Resources.
Nunatsiaq News attempted to contact Humenjuk for comment but was unable to reach her.
Carravaggie’s union grievance ended up with Public Service Alliance of Canada, of which the NEU is a component, in October 2019 and an arbitrator was appointed in January 2020.
A PSAC official who discussed the possibility of mediation or arbitration with Carravaggie told her that he predicted the Family Services Department would say the situation was the result of a personality conflict.
“I imagine the employer is going to argue that both you and Barb had strong personalities that clash,” a PSAC official told her in a May 30, 2020, email.
Carravaggie saw this characterization of the dispute as sexist: not a clash of personalities but “breaking and entering, trespass, assault, and violence in the workplace — flat out nasty and vindictive,” she wrote to PSAC the next day.
She said the public service alliance arbitrator did not investigate, spurring Carravaggie to file a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario in October 2020. The complaint names the Public Service Alliance of Canada and Nunavut Employees Union.
Carravaggie is seeking a number of remedies, including $750,000, renewed arbitration with the Nunavut Employees Union and a commitment that Nunavut Employees Union and the Public Service Alliance of Canada “take steps to stop retaliation from employers when grievances are filed.”
Nunatsiaq News contacted both unions for comment. The Public Service Alliance of Canada declined, citing confidentiality concerns. The Nunavut Employees Union did not respond.
Carravaggie said she spoke to Nunatsiaq News about her experience in response to the newspaper’s recent investigation into the GN’s handling of harassment complaints.
In a three-part investigation into harassment in Nunavut’s health centres, Nunatsiaq News reported nurses had made 16 formal complaints over the past two years, and none were determined as meeting the government’s threshold of harassment.
The newspaper was unable to glean much more information about how complaints are handled because the GN is protective of its investigation files, citing employee privacy.
As for Carravaggie, she said she loved Nunavut and the people there but she feels at peace with herself in that she knows she did good work in the territory.
“You know what’s sad?” she said. “All they had to do was give me that contract that day. All I wanted to do was work.”
The two unions have until Dec. 11 to file a response to Carravaggie’s human rights complaint.
I would have immediately charged Barb with unlawfully being in a dwelling, she explicitly used deception to gain entry to Carravaggie’s home. That deception might even classify this as breaking and entering.
This is one of the most egregious examples of malicious GN management I’ve read about. And that is really saying something because I think GN management is fairly malicious in general.
Yup, call the RCMP and hold her until they arrive. Any GN manager of any level should expect no different.
Don’t hold her. You know who she is, let her go and leave the apprehension to the police. Take a picture if you’re concerned you don’t have enough evidence. Citizen’s arrest is invariably a bad idea because you have no legal immunity if you make a mistake.
We Inuit ..been treated like this for years from 60s..Inuit reported to RCMP..and neglected time and again and again ..what next ??????????
Hard to show break and entry John, when she gave her the keys to the apartment, don’t you think?
The crime of breaking and entering doesn’t necessarily require anything be broken. The fact that Barb seemed to use deception to gain entry COULD be argued to constitute B&E. Since her apparent deception seemed to be done with specific intent to deny Carravagie the comfortable use of her home could be an aggravating factor used to elevate this from unlawful entry to breaking and entering.
Only in Baker Lake. What a surprise 😱 about Baker.(NOT!!)…
I expect there is some exaggeration on the claim here. However, the trend of having an obvious issue failing at all steps the GN process is consistent with my experience. I don’t really attribute it to malice more than laziness. The union can’t be bothered. HR can’t be bothered. Senior management can’t be bothered.
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The blacklisting is consistent also. Ironically if your name is remembered in Nunavut it is usually because you caused “problems”.
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Employees should protect themselves and take steps to document seriously in these instances. Record conversations you’re a part of. Follow up inappropriate interactions with an email summary, bcc’ing your personal account. In this case, I would have filed a police report and pursued the GN for breach if it was staff housing.
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This is the state of the agency tasked with caring for children. Are the AG reports any surprise?
This is common in the town. Go to the local GN office there and it’s all friends and relatives, dropped out at Grade ten but hey…. they’re relatives of the director, mayor and housing chair. You piss one off and you’re better off on welfare or leaving town.I’ve met a few “Nunavut Run Aways” from abuse and getting beat up.
“The Nunavut Employees Union did not respond”
Colour me surprised. Is this the most useless Union you’ve ever seen, or is this kind of ineptitude the norm?
Unreal.
One aspect of this that I find to be weird is that the Human rights tribunal of Ontario is giving her a hearing over something that happened entirely in Nunavut. Makes you wonder what would give Ontario authority over this. If I had an employee in my business in Nunavut who felt I harassed her, could she file a complaint about me to some provincial tribunal and would I have to go down there to defend myself? Weird…..
If she was a contract employee working through an agency , Ontario could be where her employing agency was.
I still fail to see how that would give an Ontario provincial tribunal authority over the government of Nunavut in regards to an employment matter that occurred entirely in Nunavut. If she was employed through an Ontario based agency, are you saying that the Ontario agency was her employer? If so, what claim would she have against the GN then? If her claim is that the GN has blacklisted her from future employment, why is that the business of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal? I thought Nunavut has a human rights tribunal. Why isn’t her complaint being filed there? It’s too bad that those questions weren’t asked and answered in the article. Would be nice to figure that out.
Due to the interjurisdictional nature of her employment there may be some procedural benefit to commencing the claim in her home Province.
I could absolutely be wrong though, I don’t know much about tribunals like this.
NEU can barely understand the English language let alone comprehend the content.🤪
Why is this not surprising? GN managers and directors are power tripping bullies. And HR is there to protect these bullies. What’s the point of having that Harrasment free work place policy? Oh that’s right, it’s so the policy can be used against the employees but when it comes to the managers or directors theres suddenly no evidence of bullying or harrasment
It’s also the younger, insecure inexperienced DMs, ADMs, Presidents, vice Presidents, HR staff and directors. The GN hires individuals with limited managerial experience all the time. There is nepotism and and favoritism. Inuit and qallunaat alike.
All the people employed by gn and I mean all of them, hold their nose high up. Even their children do the same. Very sick puppies. When we play their ball game it’s seen as a threat.
Why on earth would even the most dedicated health professional want to work in Nunavut when this is the treatment they’d receive? I wonder how the GN’s campaign to recruit nurses is going …
https://issuu.com/kingsuniversitycollege/docs/kings_fall_12/9
“I am it..there’s is only me and I have to come up with solutions..”
I feel for GN workers who feel they are isolated and left alone to do all things
Although I don’t condone what happened if this story is accurate, I also have a hard time feeling any empathy for her. She was a social worker in Nunavut for 13 years as a casual. You know what that means? She chose to be a casual worker, she chose to work with no job security but with the hubris that the GN would forever bring her back because she knew that they needed social workers. She chose to get on those paid flights to and from the territory every 4 months and live in free staff accommodations while she paid for her life down south.
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Family Services was actively trying to recruit these long-term casual social workers into permanent social workers. You don’t have to be brought back if you’re a casual. If she had been an indeterminate employee, she’d have a lot more to stand on. Apparently she “loved” Nunavut, but just didn’t want to live here.
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Now she wants $750,000? Excuse me while I play my little violin.
Yes, she chose to fill a vacant position that is posted and filled by the GN. She decided that she was going to work and travel to a territory that is notorious for abuse, while other positions stay vacant across Nunavut because its own residence don’t fill them due to either lack of education, motivation or other.
I think its fantastic that we have people who are actually willing to work and fill vacant positions. Do you think she created this vacant position for herself? Do you think she has or had control of what the GN posted for job postings?
Your issue should be with the GN, not the person who’s filing a vacant position and simply doing the job as posted by the hiring employer.
The GN choose to hire a person and fly, them in, the GN decided they would pay a person to sit on flights. The GN decided they could be on a casual basis and rotate in and out. The GN put her in their staff accommodations.
The reality is that the GN have to do the above, but that’s reality because you certainly cant fill positions within the territory when most communities are still putting up a sub 50% graduation rate from high school and then a subsequent abysmal rate of completion of post secondary. Vacant positions talk for themselves though.
As mentioned, I don’t condone what happened if reality played out how it did in the story. She came up and filled a position that the GN needed, sure, that is great. But the real “reality check” here is that she was working as a casual. Such is the life of a casual employee, you’re employed contract to contract, and there is no obligation for the employer to offer you another.
That’s fine that they dont re-hire here for another casual position. What is not fine is all the events that transpired beforehand which is very likely in violation of her employment at that time and thus there are consequences and repercussions for such actions which the GN is more than likely to suffer as a result.
Her being hired, or not after, is not the focus here. The focus is the events that took place and how that happens because obviously there is no place for retaliation in hiring practices, if a reopened investigation or court finds that to be the case, casual or not.
You can’t just conclude, well she’s casual too bad for her when there’s a malicious series of events that took place prior, of which it sounds like she well documented to her credit and will likely result in a handsome settlement.
Sorry but “You’re casual, sucks to be you” doesn’t seem like its going to cut it here.
Staff housing is not free just for the record.
Thanks so much for this info, Barb!
Hey Barb, I hesitated to put that because I know that standard staff housing is free, but I do believe that casual nurses hired from the south do get put up in free transient housing while they’re on contract. I could be wrong.
Casual Social Workers do not get free accommodations. They are charged rent. This was true of nurses too previously, but it seems that is no longer the case.
It isn’t right. It isnt fair to indeterminate nurses who have the same salary and housing costs and higher living costs and have to cover their own travel costs. It isnt fair to essentisl service staff outside health like social workers who don’t get the same perks as nurses.
Why take a job that makes you pay $1,500/mo when you could live off the government dole and pay $60/mo
It doesn’t matter if you approve of her lifestyle. You should be outraged that the GN (who has a responsibility to Nunavummiut to fill vacant positions) chose to blacklist a valuable worker with knowledge of the territory, its systems and its people, just because the manager got pissy when her disgusting orders weren’t obeyed. In doing so, the GN did a massive disservice to all Nunavummiut as experienced social workers with 13 years of Nunavut experience aren’t exactly growing on trees. In all likelihood, she was replaced by a long succession of southern adventurers who punched a few months then never came back.
Nunavut considers casuals to be nuisances, even though they functionally form the backbone of the workforce in health and social services, doing most of the work. The managers think they own your space, even though you are paying rent, and consider it theirs. This sort of thing happened to me many times over my career, that they would hold community meetings in the casuals apartment (thus making the space into community space), or storing medevac stretchers there and barging in at any hour without knocking to get them. The apartments would be run down, without proper linens, etc. It’s an obvious lack of respect that hits you the moment you arrive. Managers will happily destroy a long-term casual employees Nunavut career, too, even if they are very good at it and much needed in an environment that is always short-staffed. Baffin region for health is especially bad for this, although other regions probably are too.
Not surprised about the GN. PSAC and NEU are nothing more than union dues.
“Her case is getting a hearing in the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, … after she said the GN, Nunavut Employees Union and Public Service Alliance of Canada failed her.”
The only organizations more incompetent and corrupt than the IAs, GN and its agencies are NEU and PSAC
A lot of negative comments in regards this soul, GN, Casuals etc.
Truth is always at the dwelling of a work place and environment. Surprised it sounds so one sided leaning towards her support. NEU and PSAC does get to the facts. What is the history of not only her work ethics, her personal opinions about the people she worked with, teamwork or a Lone Ranger? Truth or Dare?
The GN does not want southerns to move permanently to Nunavut. As in the GN does not want people from the south to move to Nunavut raise their children and retire in Nunavut, and have those kids that are raised here to be a part of society.
The whole GN mindset is to pay people to come for a while… then pay them to leave agian. that way we dont get use to seeing people move and be happy here that are not from here (or in the case of the kids raised here be from here and therefore cant ‘go back’).
It’s actually vise-versa. GN hires only southerners and brings them to Nunavut. Most get cultural shock because of lack of infrastructure and resources. Those who learn to adapt get along with Inuit. GN, PSAC and NEU are negligent and incompetent .
Your right that the GN hires mostly Southerners, however this is done with the full intention of them leaving. Thats why they pay people to leave (South) and pay for people to store their stuff in the south while working in Nunavut (for a max of like 5 years, this is so to encourage them to leave before the 5 years).
but if you are from Nunavut and you take a GN job and decide to quite your not given a choice if you want to move somewhere else after quitting.
You guys wanna talk about the health sector? The nurses deserve credit at baker lake health center. Nurses told me they would work three days straight taking care of patients without sleep. Hardly even a bite to eat too.
now that’s some smoke cause none of them work that long or that hard. They have vehicles to go where ever in town. Clearly have time to snoop files and have time to gossip. They make their own bed there. You had nurses promoted to CHN without even working much as a RN why cause they are from there? They cover for one another and there is no integrity there.
True dat.
I still say that the “Welcome” sign along the road into Baker Lake is not spelled right. It’s supposed to spell Rectum.
Not Center.
I believe there was
An auditors general report that was published a while back outlining what the GN needs to do.
I experienced the same kind of situation when working in Arviat Family Services. I was being harassed and treated like dirt and management or the union did absolutely nothing. I was told that I could extend my contract by the way of a phone call but it was not in writing. Once you are labelled a whistleblower I was told my contract is coming to an end, and I will not be extended..Arviat has ran short for years because management Is so incompetent. I hope this social worker gets her day in court and all of these Barb bullies are eradicated from Nunavut once and for all.
* Correction sorry, I know that standard staff housing is NOT free.
how you may ask? by promoting one of their own who looks down on their own and should of been never hired or promoted in the first place
She loved being here for 14 years she must be fluent in our language by now. Good for her.
I think we should hold all Inuit to this standard first before imposing it on individuals who volunteer to leave behind their families and amenities in the south to come work for the Inuit government GN.
It is not an Inuit government it is a public government, still it is good to point out that they “do” leave their family to work up here.
Good for you for being fluent in our language. Well done to you too
I am glad the GN is being exposed for how horrible they treat their staff & I am glad people are now speaking up about why it’s so hard to work for the GN. It’s constant harassment & abuse of staff from Managers & HR does nothing. I am also glad people are finally starting to publicly see how toxic a lot of the Managers & Supervisors are, especially the ones at Family Services. You don’t even have peace of mind in your staff housing unit when working for Family Services. They force you to have to live with your co worker or manager in the same house, they often provide you a housing unit where you can’t cook your own food because it has no kitchen, the staff housing units are usually very dirty & not cleaned for staff arrival, & they can enter your unit at any time to put a soiled mattress to be stored? When you call out the abuse, they try different tactics to get rid of you… even when they are short staff and have no one who can work, they will lie and say “We don’t have any positions” and then run to beg to hire their friends who are not qualified to do the work.
Family Services has had a mass exodus of workers in the last 3 to 5 years. This is an example of why.
No matter what you do in a workplace, complain, write complaints and you name it! Nobody in your workplace will be on your side. That is how I was treated! It took many months to recover from all the harassment I faced! I do feel for you, I understand what you are going through! Stay strong my friend, you are not alone in this cruel world! One day, we will watch or hear crazy things about them, just wait and see!