On 13 August 2020, as a member of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), I received an invitation to an NTEU Zoom meeting regarding union activism and upcoming enterprise bargaining.
To quote from the invitation:
“This is an opportunity to talk about what sort of university we want and to consider the sorts of activities we can do to together as a union to build it.”
On 20 August 2020, I joined and attended. I felt part of my workplace again, before R. Christmann coerced the NTEU to collude in mobbing, fraud, negligence, policy breaches and psychological violence against me as a member.
The online NTEU meeting was my first contact with colleagues in over one year.
Prior to the online meeting, I emailed the branch organiser, providing my input to some of the questions. Given my records proving the use of prohibited workplace surveillance of my personal email accounts when communicating to my union reps, I suspect R. Christmann accessed and viewed the detailed input I provided to another union rep. She already knew I was a union member from the factual investigation report, strictly confidential for Catholic Church Insurance, who willingly violated privacy laws and gave access to the worst perpetrator detailed in my report.
My email to the NTEU branch organiser:
What sort of university I want to see.
In sharing my ideas of the [university] I want to see again (at least in terms of the integrity it once had), I'm going to share my story of what I've been put through and what I'm still, to a degree, going through, that I don’t want any employee to ever experience from [the university] again. The announcement of a new VC is … very timely. To quote from a speech by the Hon. Alfred Kingon at a Catholic conference in 1992 (he was the US Ambassador to the European Union during the Reagan Presidency), "there are no accidents in the universe" (see https://youtu.be/otvkfQcn3l0?si=FUFi2gUv3Uou_JQG&t=420).
I have been committed as an employee to [the university] for almost 20 years. In July 2019, for the first time, I needed to ask for support from the organisation to resolve an issue causing risk to my health and safety. It was a legal obligation for the university to follow established policies and procedures to ensure a safe work environment. They not only failed to do this, they breached a number of WHS and other laws.
To quote from the Guide for preventing and responding to workplace bullying by Safe Work Australia, “The WHS Act prohibits a person from engaging in ‘discriminatory conduct’ for a ‘prohibited reason’. Eg. it’s unlawful for a person to terminate the employment of a worker for raising health and safety concerns or performing legitimate safety-related functions in relation to their workplace” (SafeWork Australia, 2016, p.7). I escalated a workplace issue after I attempted multiple times to resolve it with my manager. I tried to communicate and reason with her. It was a toxic, distressing and unsafe environment for staff in that workspace. It was a risk to the health and safety of staff and it had to stop. From 2017, with a poorly implemented restructure, I was without support and guidance and left exposed to workplace bullying, even being pressured to manage my team in the same unethical way regarding health and safety. I stand my ground for what is right and for the “commitment to the dignity of the human person.” If I recall, that is still in the mission statement. I went to my manager's manager, who failed in duty of care too, who then referred me to a human resources officer. The bullying was then escalated by the HR unit to a whole new frightening level. I felt like a soccer ball being kicked around.
I think it is fair and reasonable that the university finally meet their legal obligation and duty of care toward me by cooperating, collaborating and respectfully communicating with support to my return to work…The more they commit to cooperating with myself and my trusted health professionals, the sooner full recovery is likely to happen. I am a human being and won't allow anyone at [the university] that are "qualified" in WHS laws and should have known better, make any more attempt to write me off.
“Workplace bullying should always be reported. If you believe you are experiencing or witnessing workplace bullying, you should report it as early as possible. Your employer cannot address the problem if they do not know about it” (SafeWork Australia, 2016). I did report it and HR executives made every attempt to cause me serious harm. They encourage workplace bullying, and therefore, are violating a number of employment laws. The future VC seriously needs to review toxic environments, starting with the HR unit, and unsafe work practices being encouraged that put good staff at risk. They are a liability risk for him. He will not succeed with executive staff like that if their unconscionable conduct continues.
Enterprise bargaining is coming up.
Clauses in the Enterprise Agreement that are used as a loophole by HR managers to continue victimising, threatening, bullying, discriminating and relentlessly harassing to break and destroy an employee need to be removed. Unfortunately for them regarding my case, all they did was shoot themselves in the foot so many times, giving me all the records I need as evidence of the sick game they chose to play. I don’t want this to happen to anyone ever again. Submitting a general protections application with the Fair Work Commission for the adverse action taken against me is now a given. Will the Union support me with this action?
(NOTE: No, the NTEU don’t care. This was now under workers compensation regulations. Had they cared about their members, they would provide information about employee legal entitlements, not agree to mob them and withhold information members have a right to be informed of. The NTEU does not value its professional members. The NTEU causes harm to its members by agreeing to omit information to disadvantage them, and support the HR perpetrators committing fraud as wage theft).
HR managers also violated my privacy in multiple examples of adverse action taken against me for enforcing an employee right to a safe work environment free from bullying, harassment and discrimination…
This university had a duty regarding my grievance, to exercise due diligence to ensure they met their WHS obligations. I was the only one trying to reasonably resolve this issue for a sustainable and fair outcome. From their end, I was victimised, harassed and discriminated against. What I needed to do my work safely was reasonable and an employee right, as well as a human right (especially regarding the deliberate isolation and marginalisation for over one year). I’ve shown a degree of resilience to survive for such a prolonged length of time. But I am traumatised, broken and humiliated. The organisation is in breach of their employment contract with me and in breach of a number of other laws.
We have a change of university leadership.
…When I started working for [the university], I loved it because I aligned to its mission and values. I still do, and they still exist, but unfortunately, only as false advertising to the community. What I'd like to see is the integrity of [the university] to be restored, because, sadly, it's been lost over the last decade. What kind of qualities does the new VC want in his leaders and managers? What kind of employees does he want to attract? Let's be honest, at the moment, it's not an employer of choice anymore. For [the university] to become one again, attracting the "right" people that will support the VC's vision and be committed to the mission and values, because it's a way of life, must happen. What action is needed for people to feel safe to communicate concerns and issues, to resolve something quickly for a positive outcome and prevention of future liability and reputational damage to the organisation? The VC's vision has a greater chance of being realised by having the right team supporting him. He is not a one man show.
To refer to my example again, the worst unreasonable behaviour and serious misconduct was modelled by HR managers, including victimising, humiliating, intimidating & covertly threatening discipline without grounds for such action. HR managers had a legal obligation to support me in resolving my grievance. "Effective leaders model their organisation’s values and standards for workplace behaviour through their own conduct” (SafeWork Australia, 2016, Guide for preventing...p. 12). The message from leaders is a contradiction to the brand and image presented by [the university] to the wider community, especially promotion that they’re an employer of choice. Many workers have witnessed, via my case alone, that the organisation is not serious about preventing workplace bullying and choose to perpetuate the problem, leading to a negative workplace culture where unreasonable behaviour is tolerated. It is unacceptable.
Being a legal requirement, what has been inflicted upon me was not only unethical, negligent and unprofessional conduct, it was very immoral. I was harassed and discriminated against in times of serious adversity in my personal life, including my father’s suicide, which I never reported (and you can see why). It also happened at times when I needed to care for my health or a family member’s. It was no less and no more than what we, as human beings, experience at some point in our lives. I was under the impression that is why leave entitlements exist. I received no compassion, support and care, including any reasonable accommodation of duties at a tragic time, to support my healing and ease me back into work.
Due to constant and relentless work-related stress that was further exacerbated by HR managers, I now suffer psychological and physical injuries (ie. hypertension diagnosis). My work-related stress started in mid-January 2017. I was exposed to serious psychosocial hazards. In my case and with evidence, there are examples of poor support, poor workplace relationships, low role clarity, poor organisational change management, low recognition and reward and poor organisational justice. The combination of these issues increased the severity of the harm I now suffer. What will the new VC do to identify and address dysfunctional and toxic environments due to incompetent or bad behaviour of leaders / managers that have resulted in serious unsafe work practices and environments? Eg. Training, counseling, disciplinary action including possible termination for serious misconduct and engaging in risk assessment to identify and address these potential hazards?
What I want to see from our union.
The university breached WHS laws ... I’ve kept complete records, which is evidence of everything I’ve been put through for more than a year by HR alone. Will the union be able to support me in this process?
Only recently, when I demanded the harassment to stop, and only after I applied for WorkCover, has recovery started regarding my health and wellbeing. I exhausted every strategy I could think of for a reasonable outcome. Intervention, as soon as I reported the issue, was a legal requirement. HR did not comply with the law. Furthermore, a workplace culture and procedures that supports staff disclosing if they are feeling ‘overwhelmed' is a duty of care to staff by the employer. It would have prevented me developing a psychological injury and finally having to apply for workers compensation (they even bullied me to use all my personal leave and kept reminding me, through an employment lawyer, how much annual leave and long service leave I had left. Translation: "Use up all your entitlements and get lost." I will not get lost after [the university] reaped the benefits of my service excellence (and what that service excellence is, you can ask the recipients themselves). Service excellence, for almost two decades, to then be thanked by stripping me of everything, including my dignity, and attempting to throw me in the trash. I'm not trash and I won't tolerate being treated like I am. I never did and never will treat anyone like this.
In a “dispute resolution”, a calculated plan was used to cause me harm. It did cause me serious harm, but the violation of my privacy implicated a family member in my work-related issue. HR managers accessed communication without my knowledge and permission from a neutral staff member... It was irrelevant to the work issue. This violation angered my family (rightly so), so they decided to make a formal complaint regarding the serious harassment they tolerated in their home and due to malicious rumours from my manager (the initial bully). This became worse due to hostile comments overheard by them through the phone, when I called to talk with her manager, and finally, to seal the deal, the privacy violation in a meeting with HR managers. I didn't agree, in the employment contract, to play strategic war games. I wanted to do my job with dignity in a safe work environment. This would have been positive for other staff also suffering in a toxic and dysfunctional work environment. It’s our employee right.
They violated a serious private health matter on top of discriminating against me for daring to care temporarily for my immediate family at that time. HR proved they exploited every possible vulnerability I felt at that time to character assassinate me… Also, my family are not employees governed by an Enterprise Agreement… Emails to my family have been extremely vile, out of line and disgraceful, especially from the HR director. To an alumnus. They don’t apply the staff code of conduct at all. The best form of advertising is word of mouth regarding student experience, based on the future VC's vision and outcomes. But he needs the right staff and then he needs to take care of the staff. I think he needs to start now with my case.
…HR managers are worse than the initial issue, in handling my family's complaint, as members of the public who have tolerated more than enough serious misconduct by managers representing [the university]. And I am certain, while I have been forced into solitary confinement like the worst criminal offender in Australia, the initial bully has been slandering me and my family with more malicious rumours. I need to know what is going on. Will someone help me, because the biggest heartbreak for me has been the feeling of abandonment from my colleagues... I cared about, supported and inspired them for two decades. Where are they? Bullied into silence all this time as well? I have been told that Professor Skrbis is to be the decision maker once the independent investigation report is submitted. It’s been three months to date and I have received no updates.
This entire experience has been as traumatic as losing my father to suicide, including all the attitude and stigma we were subjected to on top of our shock and pain at that time. I have given almost two decades of excellent service to [the university]. They took so much and did not show respectful compassion, care or made temporary reasonable adjustments even when this sudden tragedy occurred.
…I have applied for more leave while waiting for a decision from the insurer (I'm feeling anxious, because I really am running out of leave, how am I going to financially support myself when I have a job and gave my all to it - I expect all the leave I was deliberately forced to take to be re-credited back)... Everyone made zero effort to support and care for me.
Given a change of leadership, I expect improvements to repair the integrity this university has sadly lost. Otherwise what they market in the community is false advertising and misleading. I read the announcement... To quote Professor Skrbis in this announcement, “I am committed to providing [the university] with leadership that is grounded in the Catholic intellectual tradition and predicated on a strong commitment to excellence, enterprise, and empathy. My ambition is that we evolve as a dynamic and innovative university, while being globally recognised as an institution that adheres to its strong Catholic principles and makes a tangible improvement to the lives of others through excellence in education, research, and community engagement.” His appointment as VC begins in January 2021. If he is committed to delivering on this statement, I hope it can start now with my case. I’ve been committed to such principles for almost 20 years. Why was this not reciprocated and instead, why was I treated with such inhumanity?
Concluding comments.
I worked hard to build relationships with my clients and colleagues and make a contribution of excellent service aligned to the university’s mission and values. I live by the staff code of conduct. The disrespect and injustice I’ve experienced, even denying my human rights by deliberately isolating me like a criminal in solitary confinement, has been a form of cruelty I never thought possible from a university that promotes the extreme opposite in the community. I won’t be thanked in such an immoral way from a university “committed to the dignity of the human person” after two decades of quality service. Most likely my case is not a one-off occurrence, but potentially one of the more serious examples of negligence and safety breaches.
The university (or rather, the HR executive managers who supposedly represent [the university], which they don't - staff like me are the true representatives), failed on every point as outlined in the table of SafeWork Australia’s Guide for preventing and responding to workplace bullying, regarding how the organisation should have responded (2016, p.19). Listed in the table were all the reasonable steps that I had asked for. I have kept records and compiled evidence of this entire unsafe and distressing situation I found myself in.
I expect the university will stop causing me and my family members any more distress by cooperating…Can a union representative help me get somewhere with this issue too? The person that supposedly is the only one I can contact is the National manager of Employee Relations and Safety, the very person who breached a number of privacy and discrimination laws, harassed and victimised me and caused extended health, safety and wellbeing risks to my family by implicating them in a work-related issue. She has displayed serious misconduct. Does Professor Skrbis know this?…The incompetence, negligence and unprofessionalism that three HR executives displayed is a disgraceful example of bad behaviour and misconduct…Having now been through an investigation process for the WorkCover claim, I'm aware of the process regarding external investigations…
I need communication with someone truly impartial where I feel safe to ask questions about the investigation process. I need to know it will be conducted in a fair, objective and timely way (it’s been around three months already, does anyone consider this to be timely?). To date, the following has not happened (REMINDER NOTE: and given an investigation for CCI now under workers compensation regulations was submitted to the insurer on 9 June 2020, it did not need to happen. But no one informed me of this in my traumatised, cognitively overloaded state):
• who is conducting the investigation (this is the only detail I know. It is Q Solutions and that Professor Skrbis is the decision-maker)
• conflicts of interest—these should be declared before the investigation proceeds (there has been no communication or transparency in anything I’ve attempted in this entire case. I don’t trust the HR executive managers)
NOTE: and rightly so that I didn’t trust them. Conflict of interest (or rather, collusion), will soon be proven.
• obligations including of the investigator regarding confidentiality (NOTE: yeah right…they violated my privacy here too).
• the expected timeframes of the investigation
• how the issue will be investigated e.g. interviews with the parties and witnesses or viewing documentary evidence (they have not asked to interview me and the particulars of the complaint have no staff names identified – I had no idea how to write the report given no one supported me. I asked for an edited version that included names of staff to be forwarded to the investigator. The employee relations and safety manager refused. This version is in my compilation of documents).
(NOTE: I still hadn’t received the “report”, so I had no idea that Catholic Church Insurance breached the Australian Privacy Principles and gave access to the factual investigation report already done for them, with names of staff included).
• who will receive copies of statements and records of interviews (if obtained)
• what support mechanisms will be in place (NOTE: answer is NO SUPPORT MECHANISMS) and
• possible outcomes
Who are Q Solutions and why has there been no attempt to provide me with updates by an impartial and truly professional staff member? If I’m subjected to any of the three HR executives anymore, I’ll have to submit an order to stop bullying and harassment via the FWC.
(NOTE: thank goodness I didn’t. I’d be subjected to more abuse, this time on public record. See my post http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-unfair-work-commission-denying.html).
And finally, in this meeting or later, can I find out if anyone at [the university], … truly cares and will provide me with some support? I need validation that someone is going to listen, treat me like a valuable human being above anything, and show compassion. I may be a little more resilient than other people but I'm human too and feel broken, traumatised and sickened to my very core with every unethical and immoral attempt used by HR managers to cause me harm. They didn’t succeed, thank God. I have a right to safely return to my work. The organisation needs to comply and cooperate because it was a legal requirement to have done this from the start. How will they put together the broken pieces, caused mostly by the three HR executives beyond the initial complaint, to make me whole again?
Now that I demanded the harassment to stop, I already feel safer and my cognitive clarity is improving. I need to return to work and for 2021 to be a fresh start and better year for me too. It hasn't been from January 2017, as soon as I started a new role I earned on merit. It's not right or just for me to be punished for the crimes of others or, at best, because of a string of mistakes linked to a poorly implemented restructure.
I've read the following three documents (I referred to these in my message):
SafeWork Australia (2016). ‘Dealing with workplace bullying: A worker’s guide’. Retrieved from https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/doc/dealing-workplace-bullying-workers-guide
SafeWork Australia. (2016). ‘Guide for preventing and responding to workplace bullying’. Retrieved from https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/doc/guide-preventing-and-responding-workplace-bullying
SafeWork Australia (2019). ‘National guidance material, work-related psychological health and safety: A systematic approach to meeting your duties’. Retrieved from https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/doc/work-related-psychological-health-and-safety-systematic-approach-meeting-your-duties
Thank you for reading this detailed reply. Nothing is an accident in the universe, and my voice, for the common good (also in the mission) will finally be heard.
Kind regards and "see" you on Thursday. Vicki.
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I made an annotation on document 88, noting:
I am very skilled at my work, but naive with how grievances are meant to “work”. Given I’ve been marginalised and deliberately isolated since July 2019, for something I honestly thought would be resolved in confidence, fairly and quickly with established procedures, a human being does break and reaches out to ask if any of your respected colleagues ever cared about you in return. The worst is the relentless harassment that led me to react with distress signals in ways I never would, had I felt peace and safe from bullying and left alone. My “behaviour” is fear for my safety and job security, for no other reason than wanting to resolve an issue with my manager, that I couldn’t reasonably tolerate anymore. I have trauma that keeps getting triggered by HR managers. I want these bullies to finally leave me alone. It’s gone on long enough.
This post is based on documents 87-88.
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