Sacked Nine boss Amanda Paterson is suing the media company, claiming she was unlawfully fired after 31 years of service.
Ms Paterson was sacked from her role as news director of Nine’s Brisbane, Gold Coast and Darwin operations on November 7.
Last week he launched legal action against Nine Entertainment and news and current affairs director Fiona Dear, seeking damages arising from the unlawful dismissal. The Australian reported.
On the day Nine sacked her, Ms Paterson was asked to attend a quick meeting with Ms Dear, who appeared via video link in Sydney and told her her job was being terminated with immediate effect. .
She was then escorted out of the office with no chance to say goodbye to staff or retrieve her puppy from her office, which was there as part of Nine’s workplace pet policy.
A Human Resources staff member later handed her the puppy outside the office.
Ms. Paterson was reportedly told she was fired as a result of three alleged workplace violations.
These were failing to complete ‘training modules’, mishandling the contract extension of one of his employees and an incident in the office in which he made a light-hearted reference to a recent removal of ‘assholes’ from the company.
Amanda Paterson was reportedly told she was being fired as a result of three alleged workplace violations.
Fiona Dear allegedly told Ms Paterson that her employment was being terminated, effective immediately.
Ms Paterson had worked at Nine for 31 years and joined the company when she was just 19.
He has not been told that his dismissal had anything to do with Nine’s recent cultural review and there is no suggestion otherwise.
The report, published on October 17, found that Nine’s embattled media empire had ‘a systemic problem of abuse of power and authority; intimidation, discrimination and harassment; and sexual harassment’.
Ms Paterson had worked at Nine for 31 years and joined the company when she was just 19.
More than 120 past and current employees took part in the review and reported their own experiences of inappropriate workplace behavior within the company.
The investigation found that 57 per cent of staff in the media company’s broadcast division had experienced bullying, discrimination or harassment in the past five years, and a third said they had been sexually harassed in the same time period.
The company’s toxic culture had been made possible by “the lack of leadership accountability; power imbalances; gender inequality and lack of diversity; and significant distrust of leaders at all levels of the business,” the report says.
Nine’s board said the report had made 22 recommendations to reset company culture and it had committed to implementing them all.
But angry staff said the recommendations did little to address deeply personal complaints raised during the investigation and took no action against those who had behaved inappropriately.