Paramedic Elle Cooper sacked after speaking out about culture of sexism and harassment at Rio Tinto mines

A former Rio Tinto employee has blown the whistle on the sexual harassment and bullying women face on WA mine sites, with the mining giant admitting it has had to discipline an employee on the back of her revelations about the company’s culture. Yet 33-year-old Elle Cooper was sacked by Rio for a procedural error she says occurred during extenuating circumstances weeks after she made her formal complaint about bullying at one its major iron ore sites. And it was not until The West Australian made enquiries three months later that she was finally told the outcome of the internal company investigation. Ms Cooper worked as a FIFO emergency services officer at Rio’s Brockman 2 site in the Pilbara where she said she experienced a “toxic and sexist” culture that trickled down from the top. She said she had come forward because there was a desperate need for cultural change in the industry and the HR process she endured was even more distressing than the bullying and sexual harassment itself. “I don’t want to be seen as a victim,” Ms Cooper said. “Coming forward, this is not about me or my experience per se, I feel like I’m a catalyst for a real conversation about widespread cultural issues. “I have nothing to gain personally from this ... genuinely the only thing I want from this experience is to make people feel comfortable to go to their leaders and HR without the fear of losing their jobs.” The West Australian has spoken to three of Ms Coopers’ former colleagues who say they witnessed or were aware of the bullying. Her account comes after the Minerals Council of Australia announced it was planning to start a taskforce to tackle sexual harassment in the industry. A report from the Human Rights Commission last year found that 40 per cent of workers in the mining sector had experienced sexual harassment in the past five years. Women were twice as likely to be harassed as men. ‘I WOULD BE BERATED, YELLED AT’ Ms Cooper, who has worked as a paramedic for 10 years including four in the mining industry, was hired by Rio in December 2019. She was recruited after previously working as the lead medical trainer for a business that had run emergency medical and fire rescue response courses for mining companies. Ms Cooper initially loved her job and because of her training background was keen to suggest ways to improve the safety of the site. “I worked really hard, really quickly to implement changes and this was encouraged by my superiors at the time,” she said. Ms Cooper also has nursing experience and is registered as a paramedic with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority. Not all mine site emergency service officers are AHPRA-registered. Not long after starting, Ms Cooper said she started to experience nasty remarks mostly from older male employees. She says these included: “No offence but we used to have a good team here, until they bought in all these people with (AHPRA) registration”. “You’ve been here five minutes, you know nothing about mining’. “Are you wearing makeup? Who are you trying to impress?” Ms Cooper said the bullying escalated when she was nominated by Rio to act as the medical officer on the Incident Command Team that was developing their COVID-response medical procedures. While she was assisting to create the guidelines, she worked from home. “Then the rumours started, I’d only been in the company three months and got the opportunity ... (people were saying), ‘You’re sleeping with management. She’s been promised certain roles. Why would she get that privilege’,” she said. “When I went back to site (from working at home) that was when the bulling really escalated.” It included a new employee acting strangely towards her. “There was a new person that started on site and he wouldn’t speak to me, wouldn’t make eye contact with me and it was sort of a bit strange,” Ms Cooper said. At a goodbye event for another colleague, Ms Cooper asked the new employee about the behaviour. “That’s when he said other employees ... had told him that I was hard to work with and I’d been promised special conditions and insinuated I was sleeping with my management and colleagues as well,” Ms Cooper said. For Ms Cooper, who is married, it was particularly offensive because the assumption was that she had not earnt her opportunities. “It’s insulting ... the reason I was given those opportunities is because I spent my days off working on protocols and being proactive and creating documents and going above and beyond,” she said. Ms Cooper was working an eight days on, six days off rotation, so being away from family and loved ones while experiencing the abuse made it all the more isolating. It became so bad, Ms Cooper grew “fearful” before going to work. “I would be berated, yelled at, I didn’t feel safe or supported at work,” she said. The former colleagues of Ms Cooper who The West spoke with said they witnessed other employees repeatedly criticising her. “I kept hearing negative comments from them about her ... one of them was, ‘I can’t wait to go in this week and see what she’s f..... up this time’,” one employee said. ‘I WENT IN AND REPORTED EVERYTHING’ Around the same time of the bullying, Rio had given employees presentations on inappropriate workplace conduct and what were “red” and “green” behaviours. Just a few days after receiving a presentation, Ms Cooper was informed by a colleague that another employee had said they got a “professional hard-on watching her teach”. Ms Cooper was concerned when she was then told the person who made those inappropriate remarks was set to be promoted by Rio. She said when she raised concerns with her supervisor about this person’s behaviour, he told her, “I don't see those characteristics in him, I haven’t witnessed that behaviour”, and if she wanted to make a formal complaint she needed to go to HR. It was the final straw and because she had just been given the presentation of “red” and “green” behaviours, she expected the company to take her complaint seriously. On Sunday, September 6 last year, Ms Cooper attended a face-to-face HR meeting where she formally reported the bullying and harassment. “I went in and reported every-thing. Not just that comment, but the comments I’d experienced from the day I stepped foot in the door at Rio,” Ms Cooper said. “During the HR meeting I did feel very supported. They said they were very disappointed to hear there was a cultural problem and would launch a thorough investigation.” Four male employees were implicated in the complaint. ‘I WANTED TO ADVOCATE FOR ANYBODY ELSE WHO FELT THE SAME’ About three weeks after Ms Cooper went to HR, she was contacted by management and informed that she was being stood down. On Tuesday, September 29, Ms Cooper had been on a night shift when there was a double mayday. She was the only emergency services officer responsible for the three mine sites at Brockman 2, which span across a distance of about 50km. There can be up to 2000 people on site. It was about 1am when she was called to help a mine employee whose supervisor called to say said he was experiencing a migraine. “The patient could hardly talk he was in so much pain,” Ms Cooper said. “He couldn’t look at the light or walk unassisted and was dry retching and vomiting constantly.” The man had previously been hospitalised for migraines and according to Ms Cooper was experiencing a “dangerously fast heart rate and high blood pressure”. While giving her initial assessment, she also received a radio call about a fire on site 15km away from her location. She had to organise the fire response and call day shift staff out of bed. Ms Cooper said she gave the patient morphine which is an opioid analgesic in order to control his pain so she could conduct assessments to rule out other life-threatening conditions. Rio protocols dictate that paramedics must contact the company’s on-call doctor before administering morphine. Because of the fire, Ms Cooper had informed the doctor about the treatment after treating the patient instead of before administering the drug. Part of the complaint against her was that she had not disposed of the morphine in front of someone as per protocol. But Ms Cooper was on shift by herself. There was no detrimental outcome to the patient, Ms Cooper said. She said she had spoken with her supervisor at the time of the incident because he had to assist with the fire. He did not raise any concerns over the use of the medication at the time, she said. In written statements to Rio, Ms Cooper argued that there were extenuating circum-stances because of the fire and that she could not fulfil the protocol stipulations as solo responder. Rio’s HR officers senior managers held three separate meetings with Ms Cooper over the incident, where she was informed her employment would be terminated. “I took full responsibility and offered to use this example as a learning opportunity for others who may face similar circumstances,” she said. Ms Cooper said at meeting on October 14, she was informed that the separate investigation into the bullying and harassment “had been dropped”. She said they told her because of the “severity” of her error they were not continuing with the bullying investigation. When The West Australian contacted Rio this week they said “one of the concerns” raised by Ms Cooper had been substantiated and an employee was disciplined. They admitted they had failed to notify Ms Cooper of the outcome until being contacted by The West Australian. “Concerns raised by Ms Cooper about workplace behaviour have been treated very seriously and a thorough investigation was completed,” the spokesperson said. “One of the concerns raised was substantiated and an employee has been disciplined. “Unfortunately, the outcome of the investigation wasn’t communicated to Ms Cooper at the time and we have reached out to discuss it with her.” Ms Cooper said she got a phone call from Rio this week informing her of the outcome of the investigation and apologising they had not done it sooner. They said she was not allowed to know which employee had been disciplined for confidentiality reasons. Ms Cooper took Rio to the Fair Work Commission in December where the company offered to change the termination to a resignation, give her a settlement the equivalent to one week’s pay and a letter of service. However, the Fair Work contract said neither party would be allowed to say anything “disparaging” about one another, meaning she would be essentially gagged from publicly revealing her experiences. Ms Cooper did not sign it because she felt speaking out was “too important”. One of Ms Cooper colleagues who said they had experienced similar behaviour onsite said they felt Rio had been looking for reasons to get rid of her. “Things like what Elle has been removed for happen regularly across all sites and it’s never investigated,” they said. “Elle brought something up with the company that was going to be a problem ... so suddenly the spotlight was shone on her and suddenly they found something they could use to remove that problem.” A Rio spokesperson said: “(Ms Cooper’s) employment with Rio Tinto was terminated in November 2020 following a serious breach of health and safety protocols.” “We understand this was an isolated incident. This case involved the unauthorised use of intravenous medication which was a serious breach of health and safety controls.” Ms Cooper, however, said she felt the punishment did not “match the crime” and that she had been seen as a “problem child” by management after she made formal complaints about bullying and sexual harassment and been vocal on safety issues. “It never would have happened if I wasn't working on my own", she said. “Extenuating circumstances, it’s not a common occurrence. But it can happen and it did happen.” “And unfortunately, I was reprimanded for making a dynamic decision in the patient’s best interest.” There was a lack of respect at Rio for emergency officers, she said. She said comments made by one manager in a meeting included “aren’t you supposed to work well under pressure as a paramedic”. Another employee also said “no one ever died of a migraine”, Ms Cooper said “There was a lot of really old-school mentality in the quality of health care delivery and then a cultural problem around ‘this is the way it is in mining’ and a resistance to change,” she said. “I think by having the opportunity to show what happened will highlight the real issue that we’re not supported, despite being told otherwise.” If you or someone you know needs help, phone 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or click here.

Former Rio Tinto employee claims 'toxic and sexist' culture

Paramedic Elle Cooper sacked after speaking out about culture of sexism and harassment at Rio Tinto mines

Subscribe today.

Digital

Everyday Digital

Digital & Print

Weekend Papers + Everyday Digital

Regional Network

Contact Us

North West Telegraph