Head of British employers’ union accused of harassment – 04/11/2023 – Market

The UK’s leading employers’ organisation, the CBI, announced on Tuesday the resignation “with immediate effect” of its boss Tony Danker on suspicion of sexual harassment in the workplace.

The ruling followed an “independent investigation into specific complaints of inappropriate behavior in the workplace against” Tony Danker, the CBI said in a statement.

The organization added that it had suspended three other employees who are under investigation on a range of charges.

Economist Rain Newton-Smith, who worked at the CBI, will return to the organization as the new director general.

Danker had already been removed from his duties in early March while the investigation was ongoing.

According to The Guardian newspaper, an employee filed a formal complaint against him for “unsolicited contacts”, considered “sexual harassment”, linked to verbal remarks and also to numerous messages over more than a year, “some with sexually suggestive”.

“The allegations leveled against the CBI in recent weeks have been devastating,” the union said in a statement on Tuesday.

“While investigations into several of these continue, it is already clear to all of us that there were serious flaws in the way we acted as an organization,” he added.

According to The Guardian, more than a dozen women say they have been sexually assaulted by senior CBI officials, including one woman who reported being raped at a staff party.