Anti-Semitism, Officeworks, and the politics of a 'psychologically safe workplace'.

Sometimes those most eager to signal their virtue are the least likely to put their advertised virtues into practice.  

Enron prided itself on its commitment to corporate social responsibility.  Its ethical guidelines ran for over 60 pages, and it won Fortune magazine's 'most innovative company' award six times.  In 2001, the fraud and corruption of its senior executives sent Enron bankrupt in what was America's biggest corporate collapse at the time.

So it was that last week when I saw stories in the media about the store manager at Officeworks in Melbourne refusing to serve a man seeking to laminate a page of the Australian Jewish News because the manager was, in her own words, 'pro-Palestine', I went to the Officeworks website to find what the company says about itself and its virtues. I soon found what I was looking for.  It was the company's 37-page 'People & Planet Positive' report for last year.   'People & Planet Positive' ticks all the wokespeak boxes - there are many mentions of 'diversity' and 'inclusion' and a whole section devoted to 'Identity'. 'People & Planet' reveals what's become of corporate Australia. 

Clausewitz said, 'War is nothing but the continuation of policy by other means.'  It appears that for Officeworks management, business is nothing but the continuation of politics by other means.  The 'pro-Palestine' Officeworks store manager felt entitled to practise her politics on Officeworks customers.  In doing so, she was being her 'authentic self,' which, as you’ll see below, is exactly what Officeworks encouraged her to be.  The company's explicit support for their employees' 'authentic selves' and their 'psychological safety' makes what happened at the Officeworks Melbourne store more than a one-off incident of anti-Semitism - as bad as that was.  When we are forced to believe that everything is political, and that we can only be our 'authentic selves' when we act politically, and when corporate and community leaders take every opportunity to be political (in 'People & Planet Positive' the Officeworks managing director, Sarah Hunter wears a lanyard that on one side has the colours of the rainbow and on the other an Indigenous motif), the end result is what happened in Melbourne. And it will keep happening, and if it isn't stopped it will get worse.  If it goes on for long enough, eventually people of different political views will no longer be able to live together.

The very first sentence of the introduction to 'People & Planet Positive' from Hunter is, 'We're committed to making a positive difference to people and the planet'.  That makes Officeworks sound like a hospital, a school, or a wildlife reserve.  It isn't.  Officeworks sells pens and paper.  In the 800 words that follow there's no mention of the company's products or its customers.  Instead, Hunter talks of opening a store in Warana, Queensland, 'being the first to be powered by a 100-kWh lithium battery and 100 kW of solar photovoltaics', building offices with a 6-star Green Start rating, and warehouses that recycle rainwater and have electric car charging stations.  Officeworks is quite blatant about its objectives.  It wants to change the behaviour of its customers.

Helping to create sustainable and positive change to the environment wouldn't be possible without our customers and bringing them along on our journey [emphasis added] is one of the ways we can positively contribute to people and the planet.

Officeworks encourages its staff to play the politics of identity politics. 

We support our team members to be their authentic selves at work no matter their life experience, sexuality, gender, identity, ability, age, ethnicity, religious beliefs and cultural background. Officeworks wants its staff to emphasise their differences, not ignore them. 

At Officeworks, employees can't escape their gender.  Officeworks enforces a 40/40/20 gender quota in its corporate leadership.

Being your 'authentic self' as an Officeworks employee is not just some statement of psychological gobbledygook.  It has real-world consequences.  Officeworks management can't be held responsible for the anti-Semitism of a single employee. What management is responsible for, however, is a workplace culture in which a store manager believes that because of her political beliefs, it's appropriate to refuse to serve a customer.

The customer filmed the exchange with the manager on his phone.  This is some of that exchange.

Officeworks Manager:              I'm pro-Palestine.

Customer:                                 That's OK you're here to do a job of laminating

Officeworks Manager:               Yeah.  We have the right to deny jobs.

Customer:                                 Is that an Officeworks position or your personal position?

Officeworks Manager:               It is an Officeworks…we have the right to deny jobs.

Customer:                                 So Officeworks' position is that you're pro-Palestine and you won't take a laminating job?

Officeworks Manager:               No.  That's my position, but we have the right to deny jobs.

Customer:                                 What's the reason you're denying this job?

Officeworks Manager:               Because I'm not comfortable proceeding with it.

At one level it's understandable the store manager would think she could 'deny jobs' if she 'wasn't comfortable'.  Page after page after page of 'People and Planet Positive' emphasises how Officeworks puts the feelings of staff first.  Hunter writes 'The safety, health and wellbeing of our team is always our number one priority'.  

Our goal is to ensure everyone leaves our sites safe, well and free from any [emphasis added] kind of harm or injury…

We will continue to foster an environment where safety is viewed beyond the risk of physical harm and continue to invest in building a psychologically safe workplace [emphasis added] where our team members feel comfortable to speak up and be champions of safety - both physically and mentally.

The store manager probably genuinely did feel her psychological safety would be jeopardised had she laminated a page of the Australian Jewish News.  And so she did what Officeworks management encouraged her to do.  She spoke up. It’s clear the store manager didn’t believe that the company’s commitment to accepting ‘diversity’ extended to her serving a customer whose political viewpoint was different to hers. Officeworks claimed in a media statement the incident 'is entirely contrary to our ways of working and our values.' That’s not true. A 'psychologically safe workplace' wouldn't force employees to do something they're uncomfortable doing.

On 1 August, Hunter issued a media statement that concluded, 'We sincerely regret that this incident occurred and for the distress caused to the customer.'  Given how often Hunter talks about 'the Planet, ' she should be the first person to appreciate that the consequences and impact of anti-Semitism go far beyond the customer who was refused service.  Anti-Semitism tears at the fabric of the community. The suggestion that anti-Semitism merely caused 'distress' is as insulting as the offer Officeworks made to the customer of a $100 voucher in compensation.

On 2 August, Officeworks issued another statement that began:

MEDIA STATEMENT FROM MANAGING DIRECTOR SARAH HUNTER

In November 2023, I proudly signed the open letter denouncing antisemitism and calling for all Australians to be treated with respect, inclusivity, and dignity.

In March we were alerted to a matter involving a customer in one of our stores.  We took the matter very seriously and investigated the complaint within 48 hours.  We concluded that the incident was not due to malice but ignorance.  Disciplinary measures were implemented, including a final warning, additional training and relocation to a different store, which were appropriate given the youth, inexperience and clear remorse of the team member.

As education is of paramount importance in such a situation, the team member was also required to visit the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.  The impact on the team member was profound and their remorse was deep and genuine.

According to the media statement, the employee was young and inexperienced - yet somehow, she wasn't too young and inexperienced to be a manager at Officeworks.

The claim that 'the incident was not due to malice but ignorance' means nothing.  It's not clear what the store manager was 'ignorant' of.  Was she ignorant of history? Or that she was breaking the law?  Or of something else?  Similarly, it's not clear why she was remorseful.  Is she now no longer 'pro-Palestine'?  Has working at another store changed her view on global politics?  The media has reported that this is not the first anti-Semitic incident involving the employee.

I'm profoundly uncomfortable with forced re-education.  Going to the Melbourne Holocaust Museum shouldn't be a punishment or a disciplinary measure required of an employee for them to keep their job.  The problem of a staff member's anti-Semitism is deeper and more profound than can be overcome by a museum visit.  Every Greens MP could spend a week at the Holocaust Museum, and it wouldn't make a jot of difference.  Sending someone to the Holocaust Museum is a performance.  It's a performance to make the public believe the evil of anti-Semitism can be overcome with an off-site excursion of a few hours.  If only it were that simple.  A lack of knowledge of twentieth-century European history is not the reason a mob gathered in the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House to scream 'Where's the Jews?' the day after the worst massacre of Jews since 1945.

Officeworks is owned by Wesfarmers.  Without the approval of shareholders, Wesfarmers director gave $2 million to the Yes campaign during the Voice referendum.  Remember, 60% of Australians voted No.  If it had wanted to reflect the views of its customers and mainstream Australians, Wesfarmers could have donated to the No campaign, or it could have stayed neutral. It did neither.  Wesfarmers and Officeworks are now political operations just as much as they are businesses retailing hardware and stationery.  In the United States, they ask the following question: 'What's the corporate purpose of Facebook and Google?  To sell things? Or to swing elections? Or a bit both?'

Last month, just before she was sacked as Minister for Home Affairs by Anthony Albanese, Claire O'Neil gave a speech at the Museum of Australian Democracy entitled 'Strengthening Australian Democracy'.  O'Neil listed all the 'threats to democracy' it's fashionable to recite these days: 'Mis- and Disinformation', 'Foreign Interference', a loss of 'Social Cohesion', and a loss of 'Public Trust'.  Her main argument was that the public would trust the government more if the government censored what people said and heard. No politician will ever admit that government is a bigger threat to democracy than the people.

There was one thing O'Neil said that wasn't wrong.  'We need to remember here that democracy is not just a system of government, it is a set of cultures and values about how we resolve conflict.'  One way of resolving conflict is by looking for what we have in common rather than emphasising how we are different.  The Voice - supported by Wesfarmers and $2 million of shareholders money, would have permanently enshrined racial difference into the Australian Constitution. O’Neil would likely never acknowledge the threat to the ideals of democracy posed by the Voice. 

Another way of resolving conflict (or at least minimising it) is by stopping attempts to make every human interaction a field of potential political conflict. The politics that Officeworks plays is a recipe for perpetual conflict. And perpetual conflict is the real threat to democracy.

Recommended Reading

• In October last year I wrote about how my visit to the UK for the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference convinced me the UK was broken.  After the events of the last week, I'm even more convinced.  These are two of the best pieces I've read on what's happening.  This piece, ‘After Southport’ from Spiked Online last weekend by the great Brendan O'Neill, is excellent.

As this awful week draws to a close, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are ruled by people who fear the anger of the masses following acts of inhumanity more than the acts of inhumanity themselves.

• The other thing to read is 'How Britain ignored its ethnic conflict' by Aris Roussinos in UnHerd.

Shocked by the jolt to their worldview, British liberals, for whom the depoliticisation of the political choice of mass migration is a central moral cause, have also blamed Nigel Farage, the media, the Conservative Party, the Labour Party and Vladimir Putin for the rioting, rather than the explicitly articulated motivations of the rioters themselves.  But there is a matter-of-fact social-scientific term for the ongoing disorder: ethnic conflict, a usage studiously avoided by the British state for fear of its political implications.