A law firm's principal solicitor must pay $170,000 in damages after subjecting a paralegal to months of s-xual harassment that included a "bombardment" of inappropriate emails, coerced hugs and veiled threats that her employment depended on them starting a relationship.
In a finding that might influence Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins' inquiry into sexual harassment, a UK parliamentary inquiry has recommended legislating to outlaw non-disclosure agreements that restrict "legitimate discussion" of unlawful discrimination and harassment.
A focus on complaints by "affluent white women in elite professions", persistent workplace structures and the legal landscape might be limiting the #MeToo movement's ability to achieve broader change, but "power" is increasingly paying attention, an academic told an IR conference today.
The FWC has upheld the dismissal of a 63-year-old male employee who sent text messages calling a 37-year-old male colleague his "bitch" and "toy boy" and threatened to "molest" him and squeeze his testicles until it made him cry.
There is "no place for bawdy offensive alpha-male behaviour in the workplace", the FWC has found, in upholding the dismissal of a male worker for asking a female colleague for a kiss and telling another co-worker that he wanted to "f-ck" his sister.
The peak body for lawyers has taken aim at non-disclosure agreements, vicarious liability and work-related drinking in a submission to the national s-xual harassment inquiry.
A male worker and an employer that pledged to indemnify him after he was accused of sexual assaulting a female colleague have been ordered to jointly pay her $130,000 in damages for pain and suffering and for the company to pay a further $20,000 in aggravated damages, after it conducted a "trenchant defence" of the perpetrator, who took advantage of the young woman after she collapsed at work.
Employers should be subject to a stronger onus to prevent s-xual harassment under the existing positive duty to provide safe workplaces under OHS laws, while the Fair Work Act should be amended to include explicit anti-harassment rights, according to Victoria Legal Aid.
The FWC has told an employer that it must accept responsibility for a "suboptimal" workplace culture that it could have reset before sacking two senior wharf workers who verbally abused a female colleague, but it upheld their dismissals for behaviour that "crossed the line".
The ACTU will use the results of a large online survey showing more than 60% of female respondents have experienced workplace sexual harassment to push its case for the FWC to be given the power to resolve related disputes.
