KEY POINTS:
More than three years after probation officer Josie Bullock refused to surrender her front row seat to a man at a Department of Corrections "powhiri", her battle against this sexist practice has been upheld by the Human Rights Review Tribunal.
The tribunal also found that the ensuing departmental
investigation and warning against her protest was sexist, because male colleagues would not have been forced to take the same action.
But it's justice at a price.
Ms Bullock receives no back pay or compensation for her subsequent sacking because the tribunal ruled her loss of job resulted from her talking out of turn to the media. And that was a disciplinary matter that had nothing to do with her sex.
As for $10,000 she was seeking for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to her feelings, the tribunal says there was "insufficient evidence" to establish Ms Bullock had suffered emotional harm from the experience. At the prisoner graduation ceremony on December 9, 2004, where she had publicly refused to move, the tribunal decided any "emotional upset was balanced by a sense of vindication".
At the risk of sounding flippant, perhaps Ms Bullock would have been more successful if she'd acted out her hurt like a stereotypical woman, wet hankies and all.
Surely the loss of dignity occurred at the moment she was asked by two male colleagues, in a crowded room, to make way for the menfolk. A demand which the tribunal says was a breach of her human rights.
You could argue it was this attack on her dignity by fellow workers that triggered her political action. Just because she didn't curl up and meekly slink off to the back of the room doesn't mean she wasn't offended and hurting. Just that she decided to fight back.
The tribunal also found a lack of evidence of emotional harm arising from the subsequent internal investigations and sacking, pointing to her comments in a radio interview at the time where she referred to her official "warning" as "a slap on the hand with a wet bus ticket".
To the tribunal, it appears the sit-in was an act of political protest, albeit spontaneous, and that humiliation, etc, did not come into it. Ms Bullock's initial judgment on the decision was that it's "utterly ridiculous." After years of frustration, that's understandable.
What the decision does highlight is how unfair the system can be - especially for those who cheek the bureaucracy. Here we have a department of state exposed for breaching the human rights of the female half of its workforce, yet it gets away with crushing the whistle-blower without the softest of wet bus tickets being waved in its direction. Indeed the bureaucrats get a little pat on the back for "making a conscientious effort to find an appropriate outcome which responds to its obligations as an employer". Yes, but only after the press were alerted.
What the decision does highlight is the awful fate awaiting public service whistle-blowers who go outside the narrow confines of the Protected Disclosures Act 2000. This law provides for in-house "dobbing" only.
There's no argument Ms Bullock spectacularly ignored this avenue. In fact the tribunal observes "she seems not to have thought about the possibility of resorting to the Protected Disclosures Act procedure at all."
She also ignored direct instructions from a manager not to talk to the media. As a result she was dismissed for the "serious misconduct" of complaining "without authorisation" to the media about institutionalised sexism in her workplace.
Ms Bullock argues that nothing would have changed if she hadn't spoken out. She points to a case in March 2002 when a female probation officer went through the proper channels with a similar complaint, and the discrimination continued.
What we do know is that Ms Bullock's got the heave-ho for having the temerity to challenge the place of sexist Maori ceremonial practices at a "secular" government departmental function. We also know that by going public, she forced an immediate abandonment of these practices. Maori cultural practices that treat men and women differently will now only occur in "exceptional circumstances" and only with his approval, says Corrections chief Barry Matthews. Attendance will be voluntary.
It seems rather unfair that the hero in all this continues to come out the villain.
