Mary is 29 and works for Crunch Ltd., a food manufacturer, as a production line worker. A Federal Award sets out her pay and conditions. The pay is poor, so in an effort to ‘get ahead’ Mary has also worked part-time as a topless barmaid for several years. More recently, she has applied for promotion to the position of production line supervisor at Crunch.
Over the years, Mary has endured many tasteless remarks about her large breasts from the male workers at Crunch. A few weeks ago, on her birthday, Mary received a card from the male staff at Crunch. It pictured a nude woman serving drinks to men with their tongues hanging out. She was deeply offended and immediately told Andrew, her immediate superior, showing him the card.
He laughed at Mary, commenting that she must get a lot of similar cards. Mary then asked him to tell the male workers to apologise, and to train the men in appropriate workplace behaviour. He refused saying that he was sure the other workers hadn’t meant to offend. He added that if she could not get along with the other workers, then ‘there isn’t much future for you at Crunch’. The following day, Mary learnt that her application for promotion had been refused.
Has Mary been sexually harassed or victimised as those terms are defined in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) so as to allow her to seek a remedy for remedies under the Act from the male staff involved, Andrew or Crunch? Would your answer be different if the conduct had not occurred during normal work hours at Crunch’s premises but after hours at the Office Christmas Party, held at a nearby hotel? Why or why not? (25 marks) (You are not required to consider whether Mary has also been discriminated against on the basis of her sex.