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Comment by shruubi | Hacker News Reader

As someone who is Australian and not American, if anything like this happened and HR failed in the trainwreck like manner that they did in this story, we have a government organisation that oversees and enforces workplace legislation.

It seems insane to me that the only recourse you have after HR is basically "gather evidence and sue" which seems to be common advice in this thread.

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True, as much as I sometimes hate the extra 'red tape' that the Australian Government puts upon businesses here, they do offer a pretty fair level of protection against employers abusing or unfairly treating employees.

It is pretty hard for a business here to dismiss an employee without reasonable grounds that would stand up in court - which of course, if it got to that level, means that the whole story would have to come out, so a situation like the one in this thread would have meant Uber being in a world of hurt while all their dirty laundry was aired in a court.

As a fellow Australian I must add that in three separate occasions, at two distinct tech companies, I have seen people be terminated immediatelly following a complaint of this nature to HR.

These were men and women in high management positions and by immediately I mean within 48 hours or a fortnight or so in a bullying case.

Who was fired? The victim or the harasser?

The perpetrator was fired

You can't sue, there is likely a mandatory arbitration clause in the employment contract (because why not, it's free) and it applies to everything.

Exactly, I saw this in my offer.

Also not enforceable.

Well, I thought the same, then thought better of the kneejerk reaction and instead decided to learn something new today.

And Google tells me that yes, even in cases of rape, courts have found them enforceable.

Why on earth do you think that? Mandatory binding arbitration clauses in employment contracts have been enforced before.

arbitration clause should only apply in civil suits, iirc. I would hate to think that sexual harassment is a civil case, rather than criminal.

Sexual harassment is a civil case. Criminal law only gets involved if it's assault.

you can't sue. but you can file charges with the EEOC, and if they want to they can sue on your behalf.

Also Australian, and this entire story seems absurd to me. I guess I've never worked in an office with more than 50 people, so don't get the full gamut of human interactions.

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