Our Workplace Harassment & Discrimination Lawyers assist with complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission in relation to breaches of the Fair Work Act, Australian Human Rights Commission Act, Sex Discrimination Act and the Disability Discrimination Act, including in relation to adverse action, sexual harassment, victimisation and discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identification, race and disability.
These laws make it unlawful to:-
- Retaliate against an employee for exercising a workplace right eg taking leave or making a complaint, ie adverse action;
- Discriminate ie treat a person less favourably than another person because of a personal attribute they have. It against the law to discriminate against a person because of his or her disability, eg work injury, pre-existing depression or mental condition or on the grounds of race, gender, gender identification, appearance, religion.
- Bully eg with abusive comments, aggressive or intimidating conduct, unjustified criticism or complaints, setting unreasonable timelines or changing work arrangements to deliberately inconvenience a particular worker. The Safe Work Australia definition of workplace bullying is “repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker… that creates a risk to health and safety”.
- Allow Sexual harassment in the workplace, eg through ‘banter’ or telling jokes pertaining to any personal attribute or gender etc.
- Provide unsafe work conditions. Employers have legal obligations to eliminate and minimise health and safety risks in the workplace eg reduce or eliminate the sources of stress and harassment to workers.
- Maintain barriers that people with disabilities face at work.
Some complaints are dealt with by conciliation prior to any court process. Those that can be started immediately and those that don’t resolve at conciliation proceed in the Federal Court.
An expert team member is available to discuss your rights today. Such complaints can be made in addition to a workers’ compensation claim for work-related injury.
Call or email today to get advice from Workplace Harassment & Discrimination Lawyers at Carter Capner Law.