About

Work Rights Matter came about as a result of Joyce Noronha-Barrett's experience with requesting a review of her classification and being subjected to bullying, an unfair dismissal and being made sick whilst in her workplace. 

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To seek her work rights, Joyce first sought internal support from her workplace union. To save her job, she sought the support of the Federal Court, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) and Comcare/Administrative Appeals Tribunal.  Joyce's Federal Court matter was reported in the Canberra Times on 2 January 2015. Eventually just before going to trial in September 2016, Joyce's public sector employer settled in her Federal Court matter and in November 2016, Comcare accepted liability for Joyce's  claim that her illness was as a result of bullying in the workplace. Despite all her efforts to save her job, Joyce lost her right to work in a position where her performance was rated as `outstanding'. Joyce learnt later that the union could have done more to pursue workplace bullying in her case at the FWC whilst she was still employed. After all, the evidence of bullying had led to Comcare accepting Joyce's claim that her employer had `substantially' contributed to her workplace injury.

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Joyce's employer has never apologized for the bullying and the loss of her job. The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) acknowledged that there was wrong doing and that the union representatives at the time had not done enough. Click here for a copy of the NTEU letter to Joyce. 

  

Given her workplace experience, Joyce formed the view that bullied and unfairly dismissed workers in toxic workplaces (even where a union  is present) are less inclined to pursue their work rights , as employers are well resourced to fight David versus Goliath battles with them. The workers feel vulnerable and due to their concern about losing their jobs do not take the action open to them within timelines. Furthermore public sector employers are in an enviable position because they are able to contravene the Fair Work Act 2009 (FWA) and the Health and Safety Act 2011 (HSA) and pass on any liabilities (for settlements, litigation costs and Comcare payments) to the Australian taxpayer. This leads to wasteful government spending.  

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Also based on her workplace experience, Joyce concluded that bullied workers who sustain psychological injuries in their workplaces are left more traumatized when employers don't accept responsibility for their injuries. These workers are then left to finance their own medical and rehabilitation costs , while waiting considerable time for Tribunal decisions. This places an additional financial burden on workers, some of who choose not to continue the fight to seek rehabilitation for their workplace injury because they feel vulnerable at a time when their health and well being have already been compromised. Many have raised concerns about the high legal cost for seeking justice and this remains a factor for bullied and unfairly dismissed workers walking away rather than seeking work rights.

 

Joyce has established Work Rights Matter as a social enterprise which will offer a non-legal information, mentoring and support service to workers based on real life experience. Joyce also continues to advocate to strengthen public sector accountability in relation to compliance with workplace laws so that there is zero tolerance for workplace bullying and unfair dismissals and Australian workers are better protected from toxic workplaces. Joyce intends to raise funding for Work Rights Matter through a crowd funding campaign which will change the organization's status to non-profit and raise awareness about work rights issue through social media advertising and engagement.

 

If you want to know more about Joyce's professional experience? click here

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