Corporates need to do better
'As an employee, as you accept and sign your job offer, you are committing to uphold the organisation's values'
A video surfaced last week showing an incident that occurred at the Officeworks in Elsternwick back in March. Perhaps we should call them ‘OfficeNotSoWorks’. For those unaware, Elsternwick is a central hub of Melbourne’s Jewish community.
An employee refused to laminate a page from the Australian Jewish News, citing their pro-Palestinian stance. In January, the same or another staff member went on an antisemitic rant at a customer who wanted to print photos.
Would this employee have laminated a pro-Palestinian poster without issue? It seems likely. In the video, the employee is wearing an LGBTQ+ lanyard and has a large tattoo on their forearm. Personally, I support everyone and believe in treating all people equally. My perspective is shaped by being the grandson of Holocaust survivors and understanding where unchecked hate and intolerance can lead.
If the roles were reversed and this employee faced service refusal due to their identity or sexuality, would that be acceptable? Absolutely not, and it never should be. Instead of terminating their employment, Officeworks chose to ‘educate’ them and transfer the employee to another store hoping this issue would conveniently disappear. It would have conveniently disappeared had the victim not spoken up. We need more upstanders to call this out when they see this behaviour as well.
Management needs to take the appropriate action. The reason this was not made public earlier by the victim or the Australian Jewish Association, who were made aware of the incident at the time, was to give Officeworks the opportunity to deal with the incident appropriately. Officeworks did not take the appropriate action and sack the employee for serious misconduct. It certainly is not okay!
Corporations often uphold values like Respect, Integrity and Service Excellence. In these incidents at the Elsternwick Officeworks, the employee failed to uphold these values. As an employee, as you accept and sign your job offer, you are committing to uphold the organisation’s values. If you don’t believe in those values, go and work somewhere else. They failed to treat the customer in the same way they want to be treated. If staff members discriminate based on customers’ identities, they should not be in customer-facing roles. This begs a few questions. How has this employee demonstrated the organisation’s values? Under the banner of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, have they shown Inclusion? Or have they followed a path of Diversity, Equity, and Exclusion due to anger and bias?
Employees represent their company’s values to the public. I do however commend Officeworks for taking their employees to the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, which is ironically within walking distance of the store. I encourage more corporates to do the same. It’s ironic that this employee has exhibited behaviours reminiscent of Goebbels’ propaganda and discrimination tactics. The Holocaust Museum tour would have illustrated what happened in 1930s Europe before deportations began, including boycotts, service denials based on religion, property confiscations, restrictive laws against Jews, having to wear the large Star of David to identify them as Jews and the progression to ghettos and concentration camps.
Does this employee realise they demonstrated Nazi-like behaviour? Do they understand they would have faced persecution for their gender identity or LGBTQ+ support back then? Simply reassigning the employee to another store shows a lack of consequence, undermining equal treatment and inclusion. Is this an example of “woke” policy in action? Are policies applied differently based on identity, with no room for wrongdoing if you belong to certain groups?
I doubt any “rehabilitation” would work. Many pro-Palestinian demonstrators seem to follow a specific indoctrination and cannot have a civilised debate or discussion. The video certainly demonstrated that. The employee claimed not to be anti-Jewish, but actions speak louder than words. The phrase “I’m not an antisemite, I just don’t like Jews” doesn’t change the underlying bigotry.
I doubt the penny has even dropped that the employee would have been persecuted like the Jews 80 years ago, or that they might face severe consequences for their identity in places like Gaza. The other irony is the article to be laminated included people holding the Israeli and Australian flags. Did the Australian flag offend the employee as well? So many questions I know but such lunacy beggars belief in 2024. We are not back in 1934.
Corporates need to do better. They need to be upstanders, given their influences. If they truly want to say they practice what they preach in terms of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the same rules must apply to all and not to some and not to others. I thought we had made progress with Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. If we need to start dealing with issues behind screens where we cannot show identity so that we apply the same rules to all, we know we are in serious trouble.
Shane Shmuel is a member of the Melbourne Jewish community.
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