A straight supermarket worker who walked off the job over a spat which began when another employee wrote 'I'm gay' on his name badge has lost his Employment Relations Authority claim. Pak'nSave Glen Innes Jacob Abiar complained to bosses at Pak'nSave Glen Innes about his co-worker's actions, saying he was not gay and was "very upset". His co-worker was issued with a warning, ordered to apologise, and an agreement was put in place that the two men would no longer speak to each other. More than a year later in September 2013 Abiar left work and resigned, when the colleague said "good morning" to him, after greeting other staff in the same way. Abiar said Pak'nSave failed to prevent him being harassed at work. The Employment Relations Authority has backed the supermarket and its efforts to resolve the dispute between two men who came "from troubled backgrounds", and says accusations of racism and harassment were not substantiated.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Friday, 21st August 2015 - 2:04pm