James Hardie sued by former executive for harassment, bullying after raising safety concerns

Jessica Griffin, a former executive, has alleged that her attempts to raise concerns about safety saw her subjected to bullying and harassment by management.

James Hardie has been accused by Jesica Griffin, a former executive, of failing to investigate unethical or unsafe behaviour.

A James Hardie manager has alleged she was subjected to bullying and denied her rightful pay after raising repeated concerns about safety before she left the company.

The building materials firm’s former Asia-Pacific head of talent and capability, Jessica Griffin, is alleging in the Federal Court that she was subjected to retribution and that James Hardie repeatedly failed to investigate unethical or unsafe behaviour.

Ms Griffin alleges she was subject to retaliation after raising a whistleblower complaint about “potential serious safety violations” by James Hardie’s Rosehill plant manager Hector Castro and environment, health and safety manager Louise Mallinson in November 2020. Ms Griffin alleges despite raising the complaint she was not interviewed by investigators and no action was taken.

Ms Griffin alleges she and her colleague Ross Parsonson were subject to recriminations for raising the concerns, with Mr Castro and Ms Mallinson cancelling training sessions in response.

In response, Ms Griffin raised her concerns with James Hardie’s interim regional people and performance director Jennifer Warnock, before being directed to speak with external investigators.

Ms Griffin’s court filings do not detail what the safety breaches at the Rosehill plant were.

However, Ms Griffin alleges, despite being assured she would be told about the outcome, the complaint “just died” after being referred to chief human resources officer Julie Katigan.

Ms Griffin alleges she was then told by Ms Warnock to “reflect on the circumstances of her complaint” regarding Mr Castro and Ms Mallinson “and her own behaviour which may have contributed to the situation”.

However, Ms Griffin alleges Ms Warnock and Ms Katigan later discovered Mr Castro had allegedly been subject to formal bullying investigations in July 2020 and pressured her to provide them a copy of the findings.

Ms Griffin alleges in response to denying access to the documents Ms Katigan contacted external investigators and “falsely claimed that Mr Castro had never received” his behaviour report and asked for a copy “purportedly to provide to Mr Castro”.

Ms Griffin told The Australian on Tuesday that she had made her filings after “how disappointed” she was in the way her role at James Hardie ended.

“Nearly 12 months later after multiple attempts to resolve it directly with James Hardie, I am still no closer to understanding why it was not paid,” she said.

“I look forward to resolving this as quickly as possible.”

Ms Griffin alleges when she told Ms Warnock she was going to resign from her role after being “treated unreasonably over the last few months of her employment” she was ignored.

On her final day in the job, Ms Griffin alleges Ms Warnock cancelled a handover meeting with her at short notice and subsequently ignored almost all of her attempts to contact her former manager regarding access to the end of year bonus eligible to current and former employees.