A Melbourne hotel has reinstated an employee, having initially stood him down over his involvement in the antisemitic online abuse directed towards North Melbourne recruit Harry Sheezel.
Voco Melbourne Central, a franchise of InterContinental Hotels Group, put one of its managers on paid leave while the hotel investigated whether the employee had breached its employment conditions by posting an antisemitic comment from a personal social account.
The comment posted by the employee, which The Age has chosen not to publish, was one of the antisemitic comments posted by a handful of users on social media last week directed to North Melbourne draftee, Harry Sheezel.
The abuse came after this masthead shared an article about Sheezel to its Facebook page, who is the first Jewish player to be drafted into the AFL since 1999.
The hotel was made aware of the comment, which was posted from the employee’s personal Facebook account, after members of the public contacted the company. In response, the hotel temporarily stood the employee down on full pay while the matter was investigated.
“We are grateful for the community for highlighting the fact that one of our colleagues had posted a comment, as we wouldn’t otherwise be aware of colleagues’ personal social media activity,” a spokesperson from Voco Melbourne Central said.
Read the article by Carla Jaeger in The Age.