Carolyn Malkin is the executive officer for the Curriculum Bridges Project, Future Students Centre, La Trobe University, Bundoora.
It is 30 years since my father committed suicide at work. I was 13. Bullying someone to death was not a crime in 1982, but it felt like it was.
To someone who has lost a loved one to workplace bullying, Victoria’s new ‘‘Brodie’s law’’, which makes bullying a crime, and the federal government’s inquiry into the issue are significant.
My father, Walter (Wally) Archibald Theodore, was a printer – a hand compositor with an extremely high level of literacy. Born in 1935 to a poor family, he left school to support the family when his father died.
I remember watching dad setting type so swiftly it seemed his hands didn’t move. He was also extremely sensitive – and funny. Short but muscular and hairy, he did a superb gorilla impression, swinging from rafters.
Wally was made redundant by advances in printing technology and became an armed guard.
He was generally liked and enjoyed his work friendships. But as a union representative, he was unable to prevent the termination of a member caught with his hand in the till. A process of harassment began by some workmates, which included evening telephone calls to our home.
On May 7, 1982, the last day of term, I received my best school report and planned to hug him and tell him I loved him when I got home.
Wally rang mum in the morning to tell her he had visited another depot, where someone had made a snide remark about him as a union representative. For a sensitive person, this pain, rejection, depression – whatever it was – was enough to cause him to take his own life. He did this despite having a loving wife and family.
I still don’t know the names of my father’s “vultures”. Thirty years on, I still occasionally freeze; I’m a young girl again who cannot comprehend what happened to her dad.
I hope that through Victoria’s new laws and the federal inquiry, legislative change will reflect the serious acknowledgement by employers that bullying can be every bit as dangerous in a workplace as a rickety scaffold.
If you or someone you know needs help, contact Lifeline’s 24-hour helpline on 13 11 14, SANE Australia on 1800 18 7263 or the Beyondblue info line on 1300 22 4636.
