Sacked Nine boss Amanda Paterson is suing the media company, claiming she was unlawfully axed after 31 years of service.
Ms Paterson was fired from her role as the news director of Nine’s Brisbane, Gold Coast and Darwin operations on November 7.
Last week she launched a legal action against Nine Entertainment and director of news and current affairs Fiona Dear, seeking damages arising from unlawful termination, The Australian reported.
On the day she was axed by Nine, Ms Paterson was asked to attend a snap meeting with Ms Dear, who appeared via videolink in Sydney and told her that her employment was being terminated effective immediately.
She was then escorted from the office without a chance to farewell staff or retrieve her puppy from her office, which was there as part of Nine’s pets at work policy.
An HR staff member later gave her the puppy outside the office.
Ms Paterson was reportedly told she was terminated as a result of three alleged workplace breaches.
These were not completing ‘training modules,’ poor handling of the contract extension of one of her staff, and an office incident where she made a lighthearted reference to a recent removal of ‘dickheads’ from the company.
Amanda Paterson was reportedly told she was being sacked as a result of three alleged workplace breaches
Fiona Dear allegedly told Ms Paterson her employment was being terminated, effective immediately
Ms Paterson had worked at Nine for 31 years, having joined the company when she was just 19-years-old.
She has not been told that her axing had anything to do with Nine’s recent cultural review and it is not suggested otherwise.
The report, published on October 17, found Nine’s embattled media empire had ‘a systemic issue with abuse of power and authority; bullying, discrimination and harassment; and sexual harassment’.
Ms Paterson had worked at Nine for 31 years, having joined the company when she was just 19-years-old
More than 120 past and present employees participated in the review and reported their own experiences of inappropriate workplace behaviour within the company.
The investigation found 57 per cent of staff in the media company’s broadcast division had experienced bullying, discrimination or harassment over the past five years, with a third saying they had been sexually harassed in the same time frame.
The company’s toxic culture had been enabled by ‘a lack of leadership accountability; power imbalances; gender inequality and a lack of diversity; and significant distrust in leaders at all levels of the business,’ the report said.
Nine’s board said that the report had made 22 recommendations for resetting its business’s culture and that it had committed to implementing all of them.
But angry staff said the recommendations did little to address the deeply personal complaints made during the investigation and failed to take action against those who had behaved inappropriately.
