The Federal Court of Australia is to hear a woman's claim that male colleagues watching porn on the job amounted to a breach of the Sex Discrimination Act.
Air traffic controller Kirsty Fletcher launched proceedings for bullying and sexual discrimination against her ex-employers, Airservices Australia (ASA) in June 2010. She claims that a stash of porn had been uploaded onto ASA's computer system. The material was allegedly passed round amongst male staff, who would openly view the images and videos on their work computers, which upset Fletcher (and presumably also distracted her colleagues from the important task of not letting airplanes crash).
Fletcher had her employment terminated by ASA due to "an irretrievable breakdown in the employment relationship." And ASA, represented by Blake Dawson, claims that it has tried to resolve the claim through mediation "but Ms Fletcher has not been willing to engage in these processes", according to a Lawyers Weekly report.
The claim, which will be heard in August, will be a test case to determine whether exposure to pornography in the workplace can give rise to a claim under the Sex Discrimination Act. Fletcher's lawyers, Maurice Blackburn, say that pornographic posters at work can trigger a claim for unlawful discrimination and there should be no difference when it comes to videos or images on computer screens.
The outcome of the case may be watched with interest by the legal profession, whose members seem to demonstrate a penchant for workplace porn, including the Herbert Smith lawyer caught running a porn site from work and the DLA Piper partner who displayed his porn collection at a presentation.
Tip Off ROF
Air traffic controller Kirsty Fletcher launched proceedings for bullying and sexual discrimination against her ex-employers, Airservices Australia (ASA) in June 2010. She claims that a stash of porn had been uploaded onto ASA's computer system. The material was allegedly passed round amongst male staff, who would openly view the images and videos on their work computers, which upset Fletcher (and presumably also distracted her colleagues from the important task of not letting airplanes crash).
 |
Air traffic controllers enjoying porn: how it looks |
Fletcher had her employment terminated by ASA due to "an irretrievable breakdown in the employment relationship." And ASA, represented by Blake Dawson, claims that it has tried to resolve the claim through mediation "but Ms Fletcher has not been willing to engage in these processes", according to a Lawyers Weekly report.
The claim, which will be heard in August, will be a test case to determine whether exposure to pornography in the workplace can give rise to a claim under the Sex Discrimination Act. Fletcher's lawyers, Maurice Blackburn, say that pornographic posters at work can trigger a claim for unlawful discrimination and there should be no difference when it comes to videos or images on computer screens.
The outcome of the case may be watched with interest by the legal profession, whose members seem to demonstrate a penchant for workplace porn, including the Herbert Smith lawyer caught running a porn site from work and the DLA Piper partner who displayed his porn collection at a presentation.