Twelve allegations, a meeting next day, and the FWC hit pause

Lindsay Rosenblum was the full-time accounting manager for QLD Trade Services Builders, a labour hire and building services company in Airlie Beach. In June 2023 she applied for a stop-bullying order naming director Bryan Roberts and his wife, Julie Roberts, an accountant who had recently become a part-time employee of the company. Ms Rosenblum had been off work unwell since mid-April 2023, largely on unpaid leave, with a workers compensation claim pending. The company said its actions were reasonable management action.

On 5 July 2023, while the Commission was arranging a conference, Mrs Roberts wrote to Ms Rosenblum directly, although she knew Ms Rosenblum had a lawyer. The letter set out 12 allegations of serious misconduct and required her to attend a disciplinary meeting by Zoom at 3.30pm the next day, warning that a decision could be made without her if she did not attend “for whatever reason”. Her psychologist wrote that such a meeting would have a significant negative impact on her recovery.

Commissioner Hunt heard the matter the next morning. She found that Mrs Roberts’ earlier email to the Commission, which put the word “sick” in inverted commas, was “an extraordinarily rude attack on Ms Rosenblum’s integrity”, and that the letter was not reasonable management action. Mrs Roberts came across in the hearing as aggressive, and gave no undertaking about how she would act in future. On that material the Commissioner was satisfied that Mrs Roberts had repeatedly behaved unreasonably and might keep doing so.

She made an interim order stopping the respondents from finalising the investigation or taking further disciplinary action until the bullying application was decided, and from contacting Ms Rosenblum directly. The Commissioner was careful to say she had formed no view about the earlier incidents or about Mr Roberts. The misconduct allegations against Ms Rosenblum were not tested.