More people have been coming forward following Four Corners‘ exposé on Seven according to Joshua Bornstein, principal lawyer at Maurice Blackburn.
But Bornstein believes the issues are industry-wide, including Nine and 10.
Here are excerpts from an interview with Mumbrella.
What about since Four Corners aired, have you had other people reach out to you?
Yes. Other people who’ve either experienced the sorts of behaviour that was highlighted, or have information, have witnessed that sort of behaviour.
There’s been queries about whether we’re contemplating running a class action from some individuals as well. So yeah, a range of different responses, but certainly more people coming forward.
And are you contemplating a class action?
No. Class actions in the area of bullying or sexual harassment are not really a current feature of the legal landscape for all sorts of reasons, technical reasons and other reasons – technical legal complications. So, at the moment we’re just representing each individual with their own case.
You mentioned in the Four Corners report that you think this is the worst that you’ve seen in, I think you said, 25 years?
Here’s why I say that. I mean, I see some very bad situations, but this is just uniquely bad because the women are often employed when they’re very young. They’re often similar. They present in a similar way. They’re often blonde and attractive, inexperienced, relying heavily on promises and sponsorship, quote unquote, of powerful men.
They work extremely long hours — I would argue illegal hours of work in breach of the Fair Work Act. They are often sent to sites of terrible trauma, you know, car accidents, disasters, shootings, decapitations. It’s where there’s a high risk of vicarious trauma. The bullying is vicious and unapologetic and overt. And then the sexual harassment and discrimination is just overt and very nasty. And it produces this cocktail that’s just incredibly harmful to mental health. And eating disorders are common. And women ending up suicidal is common. I just haven’t seen that combination in such a graphic, powerful way in other workplaces.
I’ve seen terrible stuff. But this is so many poisonous components combining together to produce something that’s very unusual, in my view. Vicious. The women fear if they stick their head up, they’ll never work again – and I think there’s a lot of substance to their fear.
Because these people are vicious. They will go out of their way to try and and stop you working in the industry again.
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