Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Would it be 'right' to write an article on the hypocrisy of a mental health charity?

I was on a temporary agency contract last year and about to be made permanent. Just before the permanent contract was due to commence my boyfriend became the focus of discrimination for his absences from work. Because his absences were related to mental health issues and I was working for a mental health charity a colleague and I decided to write a letter requesting an investigation into the possibilty of suspected discrimination. We said we specialised in employment rights (we didn't) and quoted a paragraph from the Disability Discrimination Act. My colleague sent it from her email address since the employee concerned was not impartial to me. We didn't ask permission from our employer to do this. The company we wrote to wrote in turn to our company threatening legal action on the basis of unfounded allegations. Our company, in turn, dismissed us from our temporary contracts. No warning was given, no representative from our agency was present and no consideration was given to our previous excellent conduct and work. Thing is I have bipolar disorder and they knew this since I was a service user and now I find out they have a column in our national newspaper dedicated to the subject of employer discrimination against people with mental health illnesses and the importance of the employer playing an active role in maintaining a mentally ill person's employment within the company. I think this is hypocritical because 1) They sacked us because we tried to help a mentally ill individual keep his job, and, 2) They sacked us without, I think, following the correct protocol, and, 3) One of the people they sack has a serious mental illness. Now I just hate injustice (and not because it's me who was on the receiving end) and would like to expose their hypocrisy, but I'm curious as to whether a) Anyone else sees it as hypocrisy and b) If I'd be walking a thin legal tightrope if I write an expose of their practice. What do you think?

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