{"id":1232,"date":"2019-01-21T23:15:23","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T13:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/?p=1232"},"modified":"2019-02-04T10:42:21","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T00:42:21","slug":"chairperson-bullies-caretaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/chairperson-bullies-caretaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Chairperson bullies caretaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recent decision in Application by Ms A <\/em>[2018] FWC 4147 by the Deputy President of the Fair Work Commission establishes that even a contracted caretaker is protected from bullying in the workplace. Particularly, the Deputy President found the chairperson bullied the caretaker, within a Queensland Community Title Scheme, by:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. sending emails to Mrs A about matters which were not urgent at times that were not reasonable. The emails used sarcastic and derogatory language in relation to Ms A which was exacerbated by the fact that the emails were sent to other members of the committee;<\/li>\n
  2. by sending emails with an unreasonable (very high) frequency; and<\/li>\n
  3. in effect, threatening Ms A by expressing concerns in relation to the remuneration payable to the caretaker when those concerns were not appropriate (in effect threatening that the caretaker\u2019s remuneration would be reduced).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Orders were made to stop the bullying and the identity of the parties was suppressed (including so that the proceedings could hopefully bring the dispute to an end).<\/p>\n

    The above findings and orders were made despite the committee chairperson\u2019s concerns being found to be mostly legitimate, in that the performance by Ms A of the caretaker\u2019s duties was less than what was required.<\/p>\n

    It is also critical to remember that the caretaker was a contractor and Ms A was a director of that caretaker company. Despite the contractor relationship, the Community Title Scheme was found to be a workplace and Ms A was entitled not to be bullied in her workplace.<\/p>\n

    The upshot is that committee members, especially those charged with liaising with the caretaker must ensure they utilise the procedures under the Body Corporate & Community Management Act 1997 <\/em>in relation to performance management. Those steps should be measured, reasonable and appropriate. Bullying and harassment will likely give rise to a successful complaint to the Fair Work Commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The recent decision in Application by Ms A [2018] FWC 4147 by the Deputy President of the Fair Work Commission establishes that even a contracted caretaker is protected from bullying in the workplace. Particularly, the Deputy President found the chairperson bullied the caretaker, within a Queensland Community Title Scheme, by: sending emails to Mrs A about matters which were not urgent at times that were not reasonable. The emails used sarcastic and derogatory language in relation to Ms A which was exacerbated by the fact that the emails were sent to other members of the committee; by sending emails with an unreasonable (very high) frequency;Read More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mbp_gutenberg_autopost":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1233,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions\/1233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}