Why it’s best to keep your cool in a mall

Sydney – Grumpy customers browbeating a mall employee could be fined up to 10,200-dollars.

Drew Pearson, a partner at law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, said that there are a lot of workplaces where the public come in and out, like restaurants and shops, asserting that customers probably don’t have a an idea of the impact of their behaviour and the fact that it’s caught by this law.

If a customer’s bullying persists, employees can go to the Federal Court to enforce the order.

Pearson said that the govt. intended the laws to apply broadly to different types of workers, including contractors and work-experience students, but was unclear whether it fully appreciated the extent of their reach.

Pearson said that insurance brokers, financial advisers, lawyers and others, who deal with abusive clients, were potential beneficiaries of the laws, although to be defined as bullying, the bad behaviour will have to take place on many occasions, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The commission can order bosses to monitor customers’ behaviour or to stop any bullying, and a breach of that order could allow the Federal Court to impose a fine of up to 51,000 dollars on the company.