After the launch of my new book, Dirty Work, the
Taxpayers’ Union has denied one of the claims I made: that
the TU paid out a former employee following allegations of
sexual harassment against TU chief executive Jordan
Williams.
I independently verified this allegation
from multiple sources with direct knowledge of it. The
complaints included allegations about repeated uses of
sexualised language in a workplace setting, described by one
source as “classic sexual harassment”.
If the
complaint letter and subsequent settlement do not exist, as
Jordan Williams and David Farrar claim, then they will have
no problem publicly waiving any and all rights they have to
any claims of confidentiality, non-disclosure, or privilege,
in relation to them. I invite them to do so. This could be
done with redactions to protect the victim.
Several
further sources gave me direct accounts of witnessing the
same sort of behaviour from Williams as I had been told
formed part of the complaint, albeit on other occasions and
directed at other women. The word that many sources used to
describe Williams’ behaviour was “gross”. These other
instances are described in my book, and I note those other
allegations haven’t been denied. Indeed, our Court of
Appeal has previously observed that Williams “harboured
offensive attitudes towards women”.
Ruth Richardson
has come out and said that she has no knowledge of the
settlement. The settlement occurred before Ms Richardson
became the chair of the TU, so there is no reason why she
would have any direct knowledge of it. There are, however,
at least two previous TU chairs who I believe do have
knowledge of the issue.
Advertisement – scroll to continue reading
I do not regard this
allegation as the most important part of the book.
Williams’ denial of this allegation is not being made in
good faith. We should not let his denial distract us from
the many more significant things I discuss: the undermining
of democracy by an organisation posing as a non-partisan
critic of wasteful spending that is in fact a shill for the
hard right and corporate
interests.
