An ORF manager was sexually harassed, slandered and humiliated by her supervisor for years. The woman said this on Monday in an extensive interview before the judge of the Vienna Labor and Social Court.
It was “an unpleasant combination of sexual harassment and abuse of power,” the ORF employee told Monika Gaugl, describing the employment relationship with her former superior, who has since left the ORF.
Questions from her boss about a threesome, stories about sex dreams with her or ‘how cool’ it would be to ‘have sex with the ORF TVthek trailer’ were the ‘current tone’ towards her. Accusations that the suspect initially rejected, but did not deny during the court hearing.
When the old ORF manager asked for help internally, she did not receive it. “For me it was really unbearable. “I couldn’t sleep anymore,” she describes the endless ordeal. Incomprehensible for the ORF, because: “The accusation of inaction is resolutely rejected.”
Intimidation turned into bullying
The woman eventually confided her problem to the internal equal opportunities committee. This led her boss to stop sexually harassing her and turn to bullying. The woman told the judge that he found the rejection of his sexual ideas a problem. “There was an agreement at that time in which I was deprived of my deputy position in the department and my freedom of action was restricted,” said the plaintiff.
At her own request, the employee was subsequently transferred to another department because she could no longer work for her boss due to the now tense relationship and she avoided any one-on-one contact with him.
In addition, a so-called interim settlement was drawn up, which removed her from the line of fire of her boss, but lost important areas of work. The comparison should have been only an interim solution. To date, this promise to return to a position similar to that before her complaint has not been fulfilled, and the manager is now suing the ORF for damages.
A brief comment from the judge suggests that there will likely be a number of further hearings in the case…
Source: Krone
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