|
 A RailCorp employee subjected to homophobic and anti-Semitic vilification in the workplace had his employment terminated after complaining, it has been alleged.
Bruce Thompson (pictured) says he was repeatedly the target of anti-gay and anti-Jewish graffiti in a staff-only, key-accessed toilet at Central Station while working as a train guard.
After initially raising the matter with management, Thompson says he was demoted to another role, on a lower salary, and that his employment was terminated altogether when he commenced legal proceedings.
Thompson told SX that the first graffiti appeared in 2003, but that graffiti in October 2006 was “the tipping point”. He alleges that upon entering the toilets on the platform 16/17 concourse, he was confronted “with a wall of graffiti depicting me in a variety of sexual acts, with my name written beside them. There was a drawing of me with penises in my mouth, slogans like ‘poofter freak’ and ‘gay guard’. Another one said ‘kill all Jews’, and someone had drawn a swastika.”
After bringing the matter to RailCorp’s attention, Thompson reports that he was redeployed in administration within the organisation’s marketing division, at diminished pay.
“And when I took the matter to the Administrative Decisions Tribunal [ADT] and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission [HREOC] in April 2007, my employment was terminated altogether,” he said.
Thompson, is suffering anxiety and depression in the wake of the incidents, is now on a Centrelink Disability Support Pension, and is fighting the case in the ADT, with a court case pending as SX went to press.
The case echoes that of Bimla Chand, whose employment was terminated by RailCorp on medical grounds after she made sexual harassment and corruption complaints against RailCorp.
Chand was eventually awarded $16,000 compensation in December last year after RailCorp spent almost $300,000 of taxpayers’ money fighting the case in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.
Thompson, who has made repeated attempts to settle the matter with RailCorp privately, predicted: “This will also end up costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
He said that in another effort to resolve the matter “after getting nowhere with RailCorp”, he requested a meeting with NSW Transport Minister Johns Watkins, but was refused.
A spokesperson for Minister Watkins declined to comment on the case when contacted by SX, saying: “This is a matter between Mr Thompson and RailCorp and therefore it would be inappropriate for the Minister to comment at this time.”
Despite repeated attempts, Railcorp failed to respond to SX by press time.
The case continues.
- Peter Hackney
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed