Discrimination in the workplace - to complain or not?

[Former-Member]

Thanks @Sahara and @utopia - I took time off on sick leave. My GP will give me a certificate for as much time as I want. I went back hoping they would have got the message but straight it was back to the same stuff: not being invited to meetings, not being given any work to do, being isolated in a room by myself with no contact from anyone else. I can see now why solitary confinement is used as a punishment. If I didn't have a window I would lose it completely. My psychiatrist and GP both advised me to stay off the workcover path until I've completely exhausted my sick leave and annual leave. My psychiatrist has worked as a so-called Independent Medical Examiner with Workcover and told me about the tricks they get up to so Workcover is a last resort even though my GP and psychiatrist have agreed to support my claim if I submit it. It's hard to get a MH claim accepted with a pre-existing condition but there is no doubt my condition has been made far worse by the treatment I have been subjected to. This entire mess could have been avoided if it had been properly investigated by my employer's HR department in the first place. They automatically took the side of a manager who has had several previous incidents and didn't even bother following up the evidence I had. Anywhere else would have sorted it months ago but their lack of professionalism and poor process following has brought it to this point. I have had people ask me why I am putting myself through this but I have come this far and now it's all about justice and making people accountable. If I don't take a stand it will just be someone else in my position a year from now. The truth will always come out and if I have to expose it in a public court I will do that.

[utopia]

@Former-Member. I understand your need to fight.
if I had my time again, I wouldn't go on WorkCover. Even though it's there to supposedly support workers. They trigger me all over again. And then want to know why I'm still 'relapsing'.
I wish you all the very best

[Bast]

@Former-Member

Hi Dugga

I so know how fabulous working for a publiuc health service can be. The rhetoric of "loving everyone"as unique individuals is utterly farcical. I have also been repetedly yelled at abuse and discriminated against. It is outstanding that people with a so called "medical" illness will be supported, whereas once MH concerns are known, we become a massive danger and potential liability. 

I have strong Union representation and I encourage you to outlay the $$$ and arrange the support. The hardest thing is the maltreatment will always occur behind closed doors and finding a colleague to act as a witness for you is pretty well impossible. Employment in public health means keeping you head down and your mouth shut. 

It is horrific what they can do - over and over again, the aim is to destroy you to the point of forcing you to leave. All you want to do is cry as the campain of terror continues.

Please consider

Do not share your records with anyone

Always keep hard copies at home

Report all issues regularly to your GP

Establish proof

Review all relevant websistes - Bullying, Human Rights, Legal Firms

Is there anyone that you can trust to attend these horrific meetings with you - you are entitled to a support person, subject to your award.(Just bluff this regardless)

Endeavour to not be alone at all times

Speak with the Human rights commisioner as I believe you have a strong case

Put in a Worksafe claim - be brave, at least this will sh..t ém

Do as little as possible of your regular role and endeavour to put any interactions into emails

Despise HR and management - do not trust

Take care Dugga

[Former-Member]

Hi @Bast - thanks for you advice. I actually work in the private system but the same behaviour seems to apply. HR's handling of this has been nothing short of disgraceful - that's been the biggest shock for me. I really thought they would handle this in an unbiased manner. From the start they sided with the bully and wouldn't even document my complaint. If this had been handled professionally and in line with their own processes it would never have gone to an external arbitrator. I can see now that I was just used as a scapegoat to cover up mistakes made by a manager and was just assumed they could blame the mentally ill person and get away with it. My documentation is what has got me this far - never delete an email and take note of every interaction. You can't argue with evidence. Having a good lawyer has been worth it's weight in gold. My lawyer specialises in this area of law and I know has got them worried yet HR seem too incompetent to be able to resolve it. Nine months this has been dragging on now. No turning back - I've come this far. Thanks again for your support.

[girl99]

Hi @Former-Member

Sorry to hear HR have been terrible.  I found my HR area to be really appalling so I do understand.  Like you, I relied upon what they told me as I thought 'well they are HR they will try to help me" - no, they are not your friends and will not help you.  They are out to protect the employer at all costs. Please be careful of them or anything they say.

I'm so glad to hear you have a good lawyer experienced in this area of law.  That's great.

I wish I could give you some advice but it sounds like you are doing all the right things. Only communicate via email, get things in writing and have a witness to everything, if you can. The only other thing I would say is that the Dr reports are very important, so have a good GP behind you, and you may want to see a psychologist as this is very helpful (and can be used as evidence) and my psychologist wrote a good report that really helped me with my case.  It has been my experience that the employer will try to drag this out as much as they can to wear you down. My case has dragged on for so many years!  

[Former-Member]

Thanks @girl99 - I hope you can get some closure. It's amazing how they try to just keep stringing the issue out in the hope that you will give up and go away. After what I've been put through it has just made me more determined. They could have been resolved this months ago but it's their choice to drag it out and all that's done is give me more evidence against them. Keeping the problem manager in their role won't look good once it gets to a hearing and it's obvious this person's behaviour has not improved. I just want them to pay for what they did to me. It comes down to accountability and I want them to know how much damage they've done to me. I've got a psych report that clearly states that I'm not deluded or paranoid - two things my employer has accused me of. I've got the backing of my GP, psychologist and psychiatrist so I'm covering myself. Thanks again for your advise - I really appreciate it.

[Former-Member]

Ten months after this started I finally get a court hearing this week against an organisation that bullied and discriminated against me because of my mental illness (diagnosed severe major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder). It's been a battle to get this far and they've made no attempt at mediation or even to admit what they did to me all the while supporting and backing their bullying manager. I could have just walked away but this is something a lot of us go through every day - discrimination, bullying or even being told we have an imaginary illness and I see what I am doing as taking a stand and saying that this sort of treatment is not right.
Not looking forward to this at all but I want to finish what they started. A few positive comments would really help... thanks

[utopia]

@Former-Member. Well done for sticking with this for the last 10 months. It's not an easy fight. Your workplace is unlikely to ever admit they were in the wrong. But you can have the court verify how wrong the workplace was. And I think this is what you want. Like me - you will never get a sorry from work.
What day is the court case?
Deep breaths. Hold your head high. Tell the truth. I wish you all the best.

[Former-Member]

Exhausted.... spent the whole day in and out of meeting rooms and dealing with lawyers and mediators at VCAT. Completely drained but by 4:00pm we had finally reached a settlement. So do I feel that I've won? Yes I guess so. Maybe I didn't get my billion dollars in damages or even my apology but I stuck to my guns and got a lot more out of them than what they wanted to give. We started the morning with their lawyer saying they weren't prepared to give me anything and in their lawyer's own words "you're just a person who can't take criticism". Telling my side of the story was very emotional and difficult. Going into detail about some of the treatment that I have endured and its impact on me over the last year in a room with hostile people including one of the people I had complained about was one of the hardest things I have ever done but I did it and with the documentation I'd gathered over the last year it made a convincing case that they knew they couldn't squirm their way out of. The mediator was really good - she said that even though the discrimination would be difficult to prove in a full hearing the bullying and its effect on me was obvious.

So what happens now? Well I don't have a job - they'll say it was a redundancy or corporate restructure or some such explanation for my disappearance but I'm out of a toxic situation that was killing me and I've forced this organisation to take a good look at how they treat people with mental illness. I have no doubt it has cost them more in legal fees than what they'll be paying me but it has nothing to do with revenge or retribution for me it was always about doing the right thing and standing up for what I believe in.

I now need to refocus my life and what I want to do and as bizarre as it sounds I met someone yesterday in a chance conversation that had a real impact on me. I got talking to a woman who told me how she had suffered from major depression and tried to take her life and some of the things she said really resonated with me - why she had self-harmed and became fixated on ending her life. It paralleled what goes on in my own mind - and she told me how she survived and went on to become an extremely successful person. She told me how she turned her life around by dedicating her life to helping others and this gave her the purpose to go on living. So odd how we struck up this conversation at this crossroads in my own life and she told me these personal details - it was a very emotional moment and convinced me that I need to bring purpose to my life rather than just grinding along in a crappy job that I hate. I have a lot of thinking to do. My lawyer told me that I can still make a Workcover claim in the future but seeing the impact it has had on you @utopia makes me think this is not a good idea. The VCAT mediation process was really good as there was no way they were ever going to admit any wrongdoing and in some ways they still haven't but I hope what I have done makes them think twice about ever doing this to anyone again. I'm sure they never expected it to come to this when it all started a year ago.

Any apology they would have made would have been insincere and through gritted teeth so I think I've got out of there with the best possible outcome as going to a full arbitrated hearing with no guarantee of success would have taken many months and had an even bigger impact on my health. I need to take away what I can as a valuable learning experience and hopefully use that knowledge to help others. 
To everyone here @utopia @girl99 @Bast @Sahara @Former-Member and anyone I've missed out your words of support mean more to me than you can imagine. Knowing you were all backing me up helped me so much. Such a strange sense of calm I have today - like I've had some sort of toxic mental cancer cut out that was slowly taking over every thought. Thanks again everyone.

[utopia]

@Former-Member. What fantastic news. Yes you won! Congratulations. That was a year long hard fight and what I imagine was one of the toughest days you've had to endure. Well done for sticking to your guns. Yes hopefully they eill think twice about their treatment of people living with a MI.
This woman you met. I think you were meant to meet her at this point in your life, & you were meant to hear her story - as inspiration for your next journey in the workforce. She sounds like she has inspired some more strength in you