If you’ve been reading RTWMatters for a while, you’ll know that we are big believers in the impact of workplace culture on a whole range of things, from health and safety, to rehab motivation, to interpersonal conflict. Last night the Four Corners report “Who Killed Mr Ward” brought the huge significance of workplace culture home to us again.

While so much of the story appals us, of particular relevance here in the RTWMatters office are the glaring management and company policy inadequacies and their devastating consequences.

On Australia Day evening 2008 Mr Ward, a respected Aboriginal Elder, was picked up for drink driving on back roads near Laverton, Western Australia, and taken to jail. The next day, he was given a meat pie and a small bottle of water by Laverton police – who considered Mr Ward a friend – and loaded into the back of a prison van for transport to Kalgoorlie.

During the trip, the temperature in the back of the Mazda van reached 56 degrees. Despite seeing  Mr Ward slumped over and sweaty, the guards in the front did not stop the vehicle to make sure Mr Ward was ok.

He wasn’t ok: by the end of the 360km journey, Mr Ward was dead. The air conditioner in the transport unit of the van was faulty, and had been since before the journey.

A Coroner’s Report recently found that the Western Australian government, the prison transport company, GSL, and both the guards in the van with Mr Ward all contributed to his death.

A year and a half on, neither of the guards involved has been disciplined by their employer. According to GSL’s general manager, they can’t be, because they haven’t breached company policies or procedures.

That’s right: workers contribute to the death of someone in their care, and apparently that’s OK by the organisation that employs them. 

There are few words we can find to describe the horror of the effect of this; we here in the office are left quite speechless with fury and sadness. There are many words, however, to discuss the way in which this death highlights – among so many other fundamental concerns – the need for management to lead the way in workplace culture. The tone that management takes towards all kinds of issues is going to have a huge impact on the attitudes and actions of workers.

Management sets the example. Perhaps then, this story shouldn’t come as a shock, given that GSL has a history of mistreating detainees, and that one of the guards involved managed to keep his job (but lose his supervisory position) after telling his employers that he allowed subordinates to direct racial abuse at prisoners, and racially abused them himself.

One of the factors we must surely recognise is that, had the management at GSL placed a higher priority on the health and safety of transportees, and had the workplace culture been one of respect regardless of race or ethnic difference, Mr Ward’s death would have been avoided.

This is an extreme example of why we cannot tolerate anything but respect from management, from employees, from everyone. Mr Ward lost his life for that lack of respect and it’s a disgrace that must never be repeated.