Toby and Gavin

Toby’s dad, Gavin, made a submission in which he described Toby’s experiences in employment.

Toby, who has moderate intellectual disability, knows kitchens. He had been working in different kitchens for businesses large and small for 15 years when he started a job in a hotel early last decade. Toby wasn’t too bothered by the initial pranks and ‘tomfoolery’, until what Gavin calls ‘the bad stuff’ started.

What began as ‘jokes’ soon became unwelcome, prolonged, repetitive, intimidating and harassing. The attacks were mostly perpetrated by a particular chef, Chad, who was often left in charge. Gavin described just a few of these incidents.

One was where Chad and his mate locked Toby in the freezer, leaving him cold and scared and screaming to get out.

Another time they sprayed Toby’s shaved head with oil, then set his head and t-shirt alight.

Chad told Toby he had to pay him $10 for every day he was kept in the job. Sometimes Toby paid, Gavin said, and when he didn’t Chad would remind him he was keeping a total of how much Toby owed.

Sometimes Chad and his mate would stand behind Toby, grabbing his buttocks and pushing their groin into his backside, shouting obscenities.

One time Chad and his mate took a large kitchen knife, making Toby close his eyes, and dragged the blunt side along his arm. Next time, they promised, they would ‘do it for real’.

Toby was frightened and humiliated and it was beginning to interfere with his work performance.

He didn’t want his parents to know what was going on at work, but he did confide in his disability support workers. After the freezer incident one of the support workers decided to tell Toby’s parents.

From that point, Toby became extremely anxious and afraid to attend work. He asked his mum to call work and say he was unavailable for the upcoming shifts on which Chad would be overseeing the kitchen.

Gavin rang the hotel and the catering company to let them know about the bullying and harassment and that Toby wouldn’t be returning. They met with the manager and the head chef, who just said he was sorry it had happened and that he had given Toby the job because he was a good worker. The manager promised there would be an investigation, and written warnings to Chad and his mate but Toby’s parents never saw written proof of the investigation.

Gavin told us they asked Toby whether anyone else saw or heard any of the attacks. Toby said that other workers did see things and he thought someone would tell Chad and his mate to stop. But no-one did.

They also asked Toby why he didn’t tell them that things were so bad. His response was, ‘I only wanted to work’.

Following these events, Toby made a claim to the local work, health and safety regulator regarding his stress and inability to work. He did receive compensation, but there was no response at all from the company.

‘The catering industry is rife with abuse of persons with a disability … my son was advised never to work in this industry again because of abuse in various businesses.’

He said he has spoken about this abuse with employee groups that assist people with disability in the employment field.

‘I got the impression that it was not a good thing to make waves as it could impact others looking for employment and put in jeopardy the government subsidy of employing people with a disability and therefore employment services for people with a disability would lose their subsidies from the government.’

Gavin has been left feeling that employment services assisting people with a disability are ‘more concerned for the business than they were for the client’s wellbeing and exploitation’.