There have been two instances in Australia in the last week where workers compensation claims have made the news. The first was in relation to the suicide attempt by Tasmanian politician, Paula Wriedt. She has revealed that after the break-up of her marriage she had an affair with one of the government chauffeurs, Ben Chaffey.
According to one media report, Chaffey has argued
“that his employment became untenable as a result of the relationship and his employer’s response to it. He is seeking a severance payment thought to be about $A140,000 to compensate for this, and for stress and harm suffered.”
It is also reported that he has been on “stress leave” for several months.
The other case involves unfair dismissal action being taken by public transport ticket inspector, Glenn Hoyne in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) against his dismissal by Connex. Hoyne made accusations on a Melbourne talkback radio show about Connex setting quotas for issuing ticket infringement notices and that inspecting was a revenue-raising exercise only.
Connex investigated the claims and described the allegations as “bribery, blackmail or extortion”.
Hoyne took leave in December 2007 and submitted a workers compensation claim due to work-related stress. The situation was clearly tense.
The AIRC Deputy President, Brian Lacy, described Hoyne’s actions as not a threat to Connex but
“some sort of industrial claim, albeit misguided, for a severance payment.”
These two cases illustrate how murky human relations, and human resources, can be. Both parties are seeking recompense for actions that are work-related and both actions will result in a resolution. But neither will generate any real preventive action. One claim has been described as a pitch for a severance payout and the other is stress from a broken work-related relationship and the employer’s response to a sexual relationship.
When did people begin to expect a monetary payout above their entitlements for leaving a job that they didn’t like or for when a relationship with a work colleague ended?
A law firm newsletter from 2005 reported on a case of a stress claim, which may provide a counterpoint to the situations above:
“The employee claimed, and was successful in establishing that his stress was directly caused by his employer’s failure to keep him informed of changes in the workplace. In essence, the prospect of redundancy was seen as a sufficient causative factor in the employee’s work related injury.”
The newsletter goes on to advise
“employers must assess the circumstances and sensitivities of individual workers when making management decisions in order to avoid stress claims being made or where claims are made, to avoid liability for such claims.”
Maybe this is the only safety management lesson we can learn from the unhappy ticket inspector and the stressed-out chauffeur, manage your people well.