Log in or become a subscriber

An employee's participation in s-xualised banter "from time to time" didn't mean she welcomed a supervisor's proposition, the Federal Court has stated, in finding her employer vicariously liable for his conduct.

While the employer claimed the employee "gave as good as she got" when joking with others in the workplace, Justice Stephen McDonald said asking someone for sexual favours "went beyond that kind of chat" and was unwelcome.

The fly-in, fly-out apprentice carpenter worked for Beiler Constructions on Kangaroo Island and in Adelaide, between April and July 2023.

She claimed that during that period, a supervisor and a colleague sexually harassed her at work, breaching section 527D of the Fair Work Act, and that the employer was vicariously liable under section 527E...