Positive Life NSW

One Talkabout reader writes how unwanted disclosure and discrimination in the workplace is still a very important issue.

I am writing to inform all of your readers of something that I never thought possible in this day and age, something so close to home that it could affect any one of us.

For the last 12 months I had been working for a local country pub as a casual barperson, and had never had a problem with how I was treated, until one month ago the pub changed hands and new management was brought in.

For four weeks I gave my heart and soul to the new owner and manager, going out of my way to help them while in the change over period. Just last week I made a complaint of harassment in the workplace, which was dismissed. So I chose to put this harassment into writing, to both the manager and the new owner. The same day I dropped the letters off, I received a call from my boss asking to come see her.

When I got there, my boss asked me to follow her out the back to have a chat. It was there that she informed me that I was on a week’s notice due to the fact that I did not know how to handle "a lil’ bit of a joke.” From there we both got into a heated talk about a few other matters, when she informed me that she had notified all my co-workers, the owner and her own family of my HIV status.

I explained to her that it was not her legal right to inform anyone, and she claimed that it was mine to inform her prior to starting work (totally incorrect). She then continued to say that I had been putting her customers at risk as well as everyone she had informed. The conversation ended with me telling her that I was going to seek legal action for her disclosure of this information.

I contacted the HIV/ AIDS Legal Centre in Sydney, after being referred by the HIV/ AIDS Information Line. I was told that what my boss had done was in fact a legal matter, and that the team was happy to meet with me regarding this matter.

I never dreamt in my seven years of being positive that anything like this could be possible in my own home town, and I am yet to have an outcome from the courts for damages, so I am writing to all other people to ask them to think very carefully when it comes to telling anyone about themselves. I would also like to make people aware, and prevent this from happening to anyone else.

The lady disclosing this information has not just cost me my income from the pub, but also the income of my own business, and has caused my family and friends great pain and suffering. I am now at the point where I am tossing up leaving my home town of 28 (on and off) years and trying to start afresh somewhere else with a new name. As if living with this illness after being raped, bashed and left for dead hasn't been enough, I am now left to try and rebuild the damage that this lady has caused me all over again, and justify my own right to life.