What happens when you complain about bullying? You get hung out to dry

Yeah, I bet. Time and time again, workers use their employer's official complaints to finally register the terrible behaviour of someone, usually someone further up the food chain, within the organisation.

Then what happens? The complainants are hung out to dry. If you involve anyone from human resources, also known as, ha, people and culture, 100 times to one, it will back the boss.

So it should come as no surprise that the woman known as "Amy" has decided she won't participate in one of these investigations. Why wait to be damaged again when you are already broken?

Amy, you may recall, was one of the people at the centre of AFL's most recent racism scandal. I think it was the most recent. It can be hard to keep up.

The accusations were horrific. An ABC investigation broadcast in late September revealed allegations by First Nations players and family that Alastair Clarkson, the former Hawthorn premiership coach and the then-football manager Chris Fagan, among others, visited hurt and heartbreak on families, including:

These were among submissions to the Hawthorn cultural safety review. It goes on. And after that leaked, an inquiry into the review was announced. You know the drill, culture, people and process it until it goes away. Or bosses hope it will.

Amy, the Gunditjmara and Bunitj woman at the centre of the review, decided she would not take part. On Wednesday, her lawyer, Marque's Michael Bradley, and her representative, QUT professor of public health Chelsea Watego, released a statement. It's heartbreaking. It says the AFL has gone back to business as usual but "for Amy, it is not business as usual. The findings of the Hawthorn cultural safety review have forced Amy to relive her own trauma, while also revealing to her the scale of the mistreatment of other First Nations players and their families.

"Amy has had to work through the guilt she feels at having stayed silent back then; that perhaps, had she said something, she could have prevented it happening to others."

But here is the toughest part. The statement quotes Amy: "it's a little hard to speak up when it feels like your voice box has been pulled out of your throat."

Women are constantly, constantly, silenced when it comes to complaints. Forced to sign non-disclosure agreements in order to get reparation. Or forced into silence in other ways.

"I could either stay numb and silent, or I could find my voice and play my part in the struggle to try and create safety and protection for our young ones who would inevitably face these systems," Amy said.

Let me first say that those accused have all said they are innocent.

But let me also say that anyone - anyone - who ever makes such a complaint is subject to the most terrible processes. It's traumatic in itself. When we look at workplace bullying - and that's what these accusations are - the accused is immediately surrounded by support by those who put them in their jobs in the first place.

As soon as a victim sends a complaint up the chain of command, there is shame attached to the complainant. When you take actions like this, when you finally have the guts to tell people what's been happening to you, the scrutiny is intense. Of course, it should be. But it often feels like you are the one being judged, not the aggressor, not the bully. In addition to being victimised, this new burden can be tough to bear.

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I asked Edith Cowan University's Ben Farr-Wharton, who specialises in employee wellbeing, what he thought of our usual workplace investigation processes. Shorter version: fraught.

Aside from the pain and anguish of making the complaint, investigations carry inherent risks that can leave all parties feeling disillusioned. And in some cases, you can end up in a room with the person who bullied you, where your perspective can be made to feel illegitimate. After the investigation, you might even have to end up working with them again, which makes colleagues think the whole thing never even happened.

"Particularly in relation to workplace bullying, investigations can be very dehumanising for victims," Farr-Wharton says.

Many organisations lack the industrial tools needed to deal well with complaints and perpetrators, and they can be risk averse to the potential reputational damage. Not acting carries risks, but power structures can protect those who are doing wrong.

He quotes futurist George Monbiot who said, "we are a society of altruists, governed by psychopaths." The same is true of our workplaces.

Farr-Wharton says estimates are that 2 per cent of the general population are narcissists - but he says within organisations, that figure is more concentrated, maybe even as high as 10 per cent. I've certainly worked in organisations where the figures seemed much higher.

"The power structures and imbalance can lead to the game being rigged from the beginning. Not wishing to participate in an investigation is part of the way to resist the lack of an independent jury," he says.

"I can appreciate a person not wanting to be involved."

Farr-Wharton expressed hope at the recent changes to work health and safety legislation across many jurisdictions of Australia.

"Organisations and managers doing the wrong things can no longer hide behind ignorance. Leaders are responsible for (a poor) workplace culture under new laws and regulations that clearly spell out what psychosocial risks are," he says.

Amy has a list of reasons she's not participating. Among other things it's not culturally safe, she wrote in her statement. But the very first reason is this. She felt it is not an independent investigation. Who set the terms of reference? The AFL. Who picked those doing the inquiring? The AFL. It doesn't look independent. It doesn't smell independent. It doesn't sound independent.

For Amy and for so many others across Australia, that's why it is nearly impossible to ever get justice.