Long-time employee alleges years of underpayment, racial and sexual discrimination
National Australia Bank has been accused of fostering a “boys’ club culture” by an employee who said she has been subjected to years of underpayment and racial and sexual discrimination, ignored by management, and even threatened with a baseball bat.
The head of NAB’s repo trading desk, Dikele Diawara, has made a human rights complaint against the bank in Federal Court, The Australian reported. Diawara said she has been subjected to years of discrimination by her boss, head of trading Tim McCaughey, while being ignored by other members of the “overwhelmingly male” trading team in repos, or secured repurchase agreements.
Diawara started working at NAB in 2007 in London, joined the bank’s repo trading desk as director in 2016, and relocated to Sydney in December.
Diawara, who is currently on extended leave from the bank, alleged in a court filing that she was subjected to underpayment due to her race and gender as well as hurt, humiliation, stress and anxiety, The Australian reported. She said the bank paid her less than men occupying “the same or similar roles,” alleging this was because she was a Black woman from France.
Diawara said her $200,000 remuneration was “the same, or not considerably greater than” what NAB paid people in roles with less responsibility than hers. Diawara said she told NAB head of global repo David Bateman about the issue in 2017, but nothing was done about it until 2019, when she was given a $150,000 pay hike despite no change in her responsibilities.
However, she said NAB made no attempt to back-pay her or otherwise compensate her for the time she worked for less pay than her male peers, The Australian reported.
Diawara said that the bank’s trading desk was “overwhelmingly male,” and when she raised the issue of a “boys’ club culture” at a 2017 lunch organised to connect women working at the bank, she was ostracised.
She alleged that following the lunch, men at NAB “regularly ignored” her and she was “rarely spoken to” as a consequence of raising the issue. She said she was assigned to a desk far away from traders, which “prevented her from conversing” with her team, which put her at a disadvantage compared to other trading desk heads. Diawara said she was not moved closer to traders despite raising the issue over a 16-month period.
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Diawara said that NAB’s culture and the behaviour of McCaughey, her immediate superior, drove her to depression. She said the behaviour would not have happened if she were not female, Black and French, The Australian reported.
Diawara said McCaughey regularly ignored her and provided “no, or limited, support.”
She alleged that at one point in late 2019 or early 2020, McCaughey approached her while holding a baseball bat, telling her he didn’t want to hear about a customer “asking about NAB’s ability to deal repo” in residential mortgage-backed securities.
He also allegedly humiliated Diawara in January 2020, while she was giving a presentation to senior NAB staff, “by expressing in an aggressive tone, in front of those present, that the presentation was poor.”
Diawarra said that when she told Bateman that she was thinking about lodging a complaint against McCaughey, she was warned not to, The Australian reported.
“Mr Bateman told the applicant that making such a complaint could have big consequences for her future given she was a woman with a leadership position in financial services,” Diawarra’s court filing said. “It would be a ‘pointless exercise to go after Tim McCaughey’ and would not look good.”
NAB told The Australian that it was taking Diawarra’s allegations “extremely seriously” and would participate in the court process.
“NAB is committed to supporting equality and diversity in the workplace,” a bank spokeswoman said.
