{"id":245,"date":"2018-08-06T21:09:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T20:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portstrategy.nfdtesting.uk\/greenport-congress\/2018\/08\/06\/workplace-bullying-a-first-hand-account\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T13:21:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T12:21:34","slug":"workplace-bullying-a-first-hand-account","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/news\/concessions-investments\/workplace-bullying-a-first-hand-account\/","title":{"rendered":"Workplace bullying: a first-hand account"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bullying in global ports may not be widespread (Port Strategy<\/em>, June 2018, Pages 25-26), but when it is uncovered, the ramifications can be far-reaching.<\/p>\n

A former employee of Australia\u2019s Southern Ports Authority (SPA) has provided a personal account of the workplace harassment and bullying described in last month\u2019s Port Strategy<\/em> feature. Alleging a \u201ctoxic\u201d culture within the organisation, the former employee \u2014 who Port Strategy<\/em> has agreed not to identify \u2014 ultimately chose to resign from a job he described as previously being \u201camong the best I\u2019ve ever had\u201d.<\/p>\n

The resignation had been partially pre-empted by personally experiencing a bullying attitude from senior SPA management in a dispute over his own employment conditions. Then, becoming aware of being \u201cbad-mouthed\u201d by the organisation\u2019s senior management, the former employee felt obliged to threaten legal action to protect his own reputation.<\/p>\n

However, the former employee saw far worse treatment of other staff. \u201cI am aware of a female member of staff made to cry and then forced to come back into the room and made to witness the sh*t being ripped out of someone else,\u201d says the former employee. \u201cIt was unbelievable. When staff complained about bullying, the board just appeared to take no notice. The whole SPA executive team are either in the process of leaving or have left.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/p>\n

SPA response<\/strong><\/p>\n

SPA acting chief executive Alan Byers takes exception to any suggestion his organisation has not taken such allegations seriously nor appropriately responded to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the formation of Southern Ports in 2014, there have been 13 allegations of bullying and all have been subject to investigation,\u201d he told Port Strategy<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll investigations were undertaken in accordance with Southern Ports\u2019 investigation procedure which was developed in consultation with the Western Australian Public Sector Commission.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe procedure requires that everyone respects the privacy of both complainants and respondents to allow for a fair process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of those 13 claims, Mr Byers says over half were conducted by an independent investigator, with the outcomes entailing:<\/p>\n

\u00b7 seven were unsubstantiated<\/p>\n

\u00b7 two resulted in appropriate training and coaching<\/p>\n

\u00b7 three were substantiated and dealt with<\/p>\n

\u00b7 one remains under investigation.<\/p>\n

However, the former employee remains steadfast in his views. He describes a situation of senior SPA management taking a dislike to an incumbent senior manager at Bunbury. \u201cSo they ignored him for a whole year \u2013 they just circumvented him. I said: \u2018Mate, you\u2019ve got the best case I\u2019ve ever seen for constructive dismissal\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another alleged situation, the former employee believes junior staff were encouraged to lay allegations against one of their managers who senior SPA management apparently wanted to have removed. \u201cIn my opinion they concocted a story that he had done illegal things. An investigation found that the things he was accused of had never happened, but by that time, the damage had been done.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the core of the issue, from the former employee\u2019s perspective, is a sub-standard recruitment process, that has, in his view, seen inexperienced senior management appointed.<\/p>\n

As an example, the former employee was instructed \u2013 but refused \u2013 to implement recommendations his own lengthy experience confirmed were unsound. A request to review the report driving those particular recommendations was refused.<\/p>\n

Staff expertise<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, Mr Byers counters that the Western Australian Government\u2019s Post-Amalgamation Review into SPA determined the organisation had \u201cbeen able to attract staff with expertise and of a calibre each individual port had been unable to achieve prior to amalgamation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The review] into Southern Ports found the organisation was 18 months into a five-year cultural change programme. The review found each port had benefited from the amalgamation with better practices, decision-making and governance, and it identified isolated \u2013 rather than systemic \u2013 cultural issues existed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn line with recommendations from the review, Southern Ports continues to implement its cultural change action plan to address those issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the former employee believes questions can be asked of the board. \u201cSome members of the board were told of the problems \u2013 I sat down with them and said \u2018you have got this wrong\u2019. I gave them examples whereby, in my opinion, senior management had lied to them, to staff and to customers. I said ‘this is not going to end well\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Byers reiterates: \u201cAll bullying allegations raised with Southern Ports by staff, whether at board level or otherwise, have been investigated and dealt with. One matter remains under investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, as interviewees alluded to in the previous Port Strategy<\/i> feature on this issue, the former employee does not believe the culture personally witnessed within senior SPA management is endemic of attitudes in the wider port sector.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s WorkSafe is currently investigating if there have been any breaches of the Occupational Safety and Health Act at SPA.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouthern Ports will continue to work with the regulator which has been tasked with looking at overall procedures at Southern Ports,\u201d continues Mr Byers. \u201cSouthern Ports procedures, including investigation and grievance procedures, were included within the terms of reference of the Southern Ports Post-Amalgamation Review.\u201d<\/p>\n

The review found the amalgamation had resulted in improved practices, decision-making and governance. \u201cSouthern Ports continues to roll out its cultural change action plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inaugural SPA chief executive Nicolas Fertin announced his resignation on June 12 to \u201cfurther his career and pursue new opportunities\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Fertin had previously stated that he was focused on building a culture for the about 200-person organisation based on accountability, integrity and teamwork, and that any reports of bullying were internally investigated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been a privilege to serve as CEO of Southern Ports and I am proud of the transformational changes that were achieved by all employees working together with the support of stakeholders, three communities and our port users,\u201d he stated when announcing his resignation.<\/p>\n

Within that same media release, SPA chairperson Robert Cole expressed appreciation for Mr Fertin\u2019s service and noted he had \u201cled the complex task of transforming Albany, Bunbury and Esperance ports into a single, amalgamated business\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been a complex and demanding task and his dedicated efforts resulted in Southern Ports achieving record results in FY17 in each of the three ports, as well as the business as a whole,\u201d stated Mr Cole.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll bullying allegations raised with Southern Ports by staff, whether at board level or otherwise, have been investigated and dealt with. One matter remains under investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the interview with the former employee of SPA quoted in this article, Port Strategy was approached by two additional former employees who relayed similar experiences and offered further sources for potential follow up. In the sense of fair reportage, we have opted to focus this article on the experiences of the first source alone, to which SPA has been afforded a direct right of response.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Port Strategy follows up on the issue of bullying in ports with a first hand account of a former employee of an Australian port that claims to have suffered in its hands. Iain MacIntyre reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":246,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concessions-investments"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions\/247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}