Western Australian man fired after pooping in front of colleagues

Warning: graphic content

When you have to go, you have to go.

But a man’s urge to defecate has made him lose his job and his right to a fair job.

Western Australian man Anthony Lear, who pooped at his workplace twice, lost a dramatic fair job lawsuit against his former employer, claiming he had been unfairly fired for pooping in public.

Lear had worked as a production technician at BHP WAIO (Western Australian Iron Ore) for seven years before being laid off in April.

According to the Fair Labor Commission (FMC) hearing documents, Lear defecated in an “active work area” at the Yandi mine in Western Australia on two separate occasions in March.

During the first alleged incident he pooped in an active drill hole and in the second he defecated in the “collar” of an active drill hole.

“This conduct occurred, said the respondent, in a context of unsatisfactory behavior in the workplace, which when considered with the incidents, led the respondent to fire Mr. Lear,” the FMC document reads.

But Lear said he had not been given a valid reason for the firing and argued that there was no other option because sanitary facilities were lacking at the site.

He explained that he pooped before immediately plugging it and that he had treated the hole like a high-flush toilet. Lear also argued that he had an urgent onset of “explosive diarrhea” and was in pain.

“(It was) something else,” he said as he gave testimony.

The witness, Joel Garner, who is a shooter at the Yandi mine, said he noticed that his colleague threw a rock through the hole that sounded like it hit a gas bag on March 9.

When he asked the defendant why he did that, Lear replied, “I took it like crap up the hole.”

According to the FWC document, he confessed that most of the time Lear is the one left behind to monitor the drilling pattern while the rest of the crew go to their lunch break, but said Lear should have moved to a wasteland.

The second alleged incident occurred weeks later, on March 27.

When Lear realized he was not going to make the eight-minute trip to the nearest bathroom, he looked for the best place to do the writing, he said in the audience.

He said he had walked into the darkness heading east towards “poor Mr. Jack Hughes” to whom he said, “I’m about to fuck myself, turn around, turn around.”

Witnesses heard that toilet facilities are supposed to be spaced five to six minutes apart at the site, but Lear said that is largely dependent on traffic.

Jack Hughes, a production technician at the Yandi mine, said he saw Lear holding up a pile of old rags before saying, “I need to take it like crap.”

Moments later, he smelled bad and saw Lear crouched over a protective collar.

“What are you doing? Why are you shitting on a necklace?” Hughes asked, according to the FWC audience.

Lear replied, “I couldn’t hold on.”

But Hughes said the row (paddock) “wasn’t that far, mate.”

Despite the evidence provided by Lear, FWC was convinced that based on his conduct, including unrelated past work incidents, the employer had a valid reason to fire him.

“The firing of Mr. Lear was not unfair, unreasonable or severe,” the document says.

The commission considered his employer’s code of conduct that included putting health and safety first.

WAIO also recommended that if a staff member cannot wait to get to a designated bathroom, then they should move away from the blast pattern towards the surrounding land.

Yandi’s Drilling and Blasting Department is responsible for conducting controlled blasting of the rock and soil surface to allow surface material to be more easily removed and the underlying iron ore to be exposed.