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A Kamloops woman has won the first stage of a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal case after she failed to get a promotion while working for a catering company at Thompson Rivers University.

According to a Feb. 1 B.C. Human Rights Tribunal decision, Francisca Nnona was shortlisted for a retail manager position for Aramark Canada, the company that runs the catering at Thompson Rivers University.

The decision says Nnona, who is Black, was one of three candidates for the managerial position.

She had one interview with human resources, but the company then hired someone else, without any of the candidates progressing to a second or third interview.

Nnona, then filed a Human Rights Tribunal complaint, alleging the universities catering company had discriminated against her because of the colour of her skin.

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Aramark Canada deny the discrimination and say the candidates it picked were more qualified.

Nnona had originally named her direct manager in the case, but the Tribunal dismissed that claim, telling her the complaint had to focus purely on the company, and not a single individual.

The decision lays out Nnona previous work experience and says while working for the company over the last six years she'd supervised over 40 employees at times. The decision lists multiple other supervisory positions that she'd held.

However, the company argues the candidate it picked had a broader managerial skill set.

Nnona also alleges that the company has not hired or promoted any Black people to a managerial role since 2018 and gives three examples, although they are not listed in the decision.

Aramark "vigorously" disputes the allegations and says they are simply "unsubstantiated speculation."

In Aramark's effort to dismiss Nnona's claim, the company points to the fact it has a diverse and multicultural workforce and its human resources staff are both women of colour, although they are not black.

"However, racism can clearly operate between groups of people who are racialized in Canada, and the racial make-up of a company’s workforce is not determinative of an allegation of racial discrimination," the Tribunal ruled in the decision. "Additionally, this argument fails to recognize the historical and systemic racism that Black people have faced in Canada. The diversity of Aramark’s workforce cannot, without more, justify a dismissal of Ms. Nnona’s complaint without a hearing."

The complaint will now move forward to go to a hearing, although the Tribunal encourages the two sides to take advantage of its mediation services and to try and resolve this issue by mutual agreement.

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