The BC Human Rights Tribunal refused a union's application to dismiss a racial discrimination complaint brought by a makeup artist working on film productions. Priya Singh said she was excluded from work in favour of less qualified permittees who were not racialised, and that IATSE Local 891 focused on pay adjustments rather than investigating the alleged discrimination.
The union argued that Singh had been paid for hours she did not work and that several incidents had not been reported in time to file grievances. The tribunal concluded that a member can suffer an adverse employment effect through exclusion from the workplace even without financial loss. It was also possible, on the evidence, that a union which disregarded the race component of a complaint had participated in discriminatory workplace practices or provided discriminatory representation.
Singh had also sought election to a union working group concerned with racialised makeup practices. She complained that the union failed to publish candidate statements that would have allowed her to explain her relevant lived experience. The tribunal found that the decision could have disadvantaged candidates for reasons connected to race and colour, even though the same statement rule applied to all candidates.
The complaint was not proven. The tribunal determined only that it could not be dismissed without a hearing under section 27(1)(c) of the Human Rights Code. It left questions of employment, union membership and the alleged discrimination to be resolved on a fuller record.
The case matters because a grievance resolved in dollars is not necessarily a racial discrimination complaint resolved in substance. The original tribunal reasons were reviewed, including paragraphs 19 to 49 concerning alleged exclusion, union representation and the working group election.
The film production setting gives this procedural decision wider importance for the creative industries. Union working groups make decisions affecting on screen representation, while crew hiring practices shape whose expertise is present behind the camera. Alleged exclusion should be evaluated on its substance and not only on the amount of pay recovered. These allegations still require a hearing.