It turns out that women filming gifts of sex toys to male colleagues is not ok in Australia

Almost everything I know about Australia comes from The Simpsons.

For example, did you know that the water in flushed Australian toilets spins clockwise? (Except at the U.S. Embassy).

Down under, they play a game called knifey-spoony. Bull frogs are chazwazzas. And, if you ask for coffee, they’ll serve you a beer. And scamming the locals with collect calls from the International Drainage Commission will result in a booting. (So will disparaging a booting.) And if you happen to escape the booting, don’t try to make a run (jump?) for it in a kangaroo’s pouch.

At least, that’s what Bart and Homer taught me.

However, the Simpsons didn’t teach this American employment lawyer anything about Australian employment law. For that, I had to turn elsewhere — like this story I read on news.com.au about a mining company that hired a female cleaning service.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with hiring a female cleaning service. But I don’t know what kind of background check the employer ran. So, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that it wasn’t a good one. For it has been reported that after they were hired, the group of cleaning women alleged filmed themselves “wielding homemade sex toys and gifting them to their male colleagues.” They also took video of themselves squatting over traffic cones.

WTH!

To the employer’s credit, it took fast, remedial action. The cleaning service promptly fired the women and opened an investigation. Meanwhile, the mining company confirmed that the “unacceptable” behavior does not represent the “company’s values of respect and inclusiveness.” Plus, the mining company committed to “educate all staff and contractors as to expectations on what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.”

Fortunately, Australian employers seemingly have as little tolerance for this type of behavior as companies do here in the States — no matter the sex of the culprits. Although another news report indicates that the mining industry in Australia still has a long way to go.

Sorry, folks, I probably will not have more on this story. Frankly, I only went there because I’m tired of blogging about vaccine mandates, and this was the furthest thing from vaccine mandates that I could find. Stay tuned for Monday when I’ll have a post about Botswanan wage-and-hour law.

Or, more likely, vaccine mandates in the United States.

Sigh…