Testimony from a male employee

Recently a male ex employee approached us wanting to share details of how he was treated while he was working for UNiDAYS.

This man worked in the HR department. He’s chosen not to share his name, but he’s also written a very damning review on Glassdoor.co.uk.

“The personal worst run in I had with him was when he called me into his office for a quick “progress update” on a piece of recruitment we were doing.

“This turned into him completely ambushing me – shouting at me, basically telling me how to do my job (a job he has zero experience in) and gave me a grilling on the spot. Told me to list off the top 5 things about working at UNiDAYS, nonsense like that. It was genuinely traumatic.

“I also had a conversation with Situl Bains where she said “it’s good that we have HR presence in London now because they can keep an eye on people and make sure they’re working” …that’s not what HR does.

“He’s a bully to everyone, both men and women.”

LEAKED EMAILS PROVE TRANSCRIPTS ARE TRUE!!!

We have been leaked emails that prove UNiDAYS lied when they told the press, employees and brands that transcripts of hearings of widespread sexual impropriety at the company were false and a hoax.

Here you can see for yourself internal emails from Situl Bains, UNiDAYS in-house lawyer and brother of the chief culprit chief exec Josh Rathour, and Matt Atkinson, chairman of UNiDAYS and on the board of so called ethical brand the Coop, sending him the transcript.

And another one from her to UNiDAYS crisis management consultant Adam Fresco and, astonishingly, Geraldine Ryan, lead lawyer for Hill Dickinson, who was in the room when the interviews took place, and whom she described as incredibly “helpful” also confirming that these transcripts were part of the wider report. And to Adam Fresco, UNiDAYS crisis management and PR consultant. It is clear that these talk to both these hearings and the wider report, based on interviews with up to 60 employees.


It’s time to take a stand!!!

A new testimony

Until recently we had transcripts of four hearings which were supposedly investigating the systemic abuse, bullying and harassment that is prevalent at UNiDAYS. UNiDAYS have claimed that these transcripts are fake. They are not. We ask – who would fake such a thing? How is there so much detail?

Since we published the transcripts another very brave former employee has got in touch with us, willing to share her story. She’s given us her transcript – with her notes on it pointing out things that are incorrect, or have been omitted.

She gave this story to Hill Dickinson (who ran the supposed ‘independent enquiry’ into harassment) as well. There are many more similar stories. It was a typical incident that happened to many women. She was forced to leave and sign an NDA not to talk about what had happened, a process that happened again and again with other young women.

This was a horrible and distressing time. We applaud her bravery for coming forward and telling her story. Today she says: “I am in a better place now. If what happened to me is the worst thing that happened – well, it was really upsetting for me, but Josh hasn’t raped anyone, he’s just a dick. But if anything worse *has* happened, and my story helps to get vindication for them, then I am happy to help. After it happened, I was in quite serious shock, quite unwell because of distress.”

You can read her full story here.

We think it’s a disgrace that these women have not been listened to. These are serious allegations of misconduct, by a man running a company aimed at students. UNiDAYS needs a complete change of the senior management team.

UNIDAYS INJUSTICE

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The Stories

Sexual harassment | Bullying | Misogyny | Domestic Abuse | Students | Inappropriate Relationships | UNiDAYS Brands’ Hall of Shame

Please help us

We are an anxious group of people who have been badly let down by UNiDAYS and their lawyers. No one will hear us. Will you?

UNiDAYS launched in 2011. Josh Rathour set it up. He is a monster and a bully, and treats women specifically and people generally really badly. But more about that later.

More importantly, we got together to start a petition to call him out for his appalling, bullying, abusive behaviour.

The petition

Back in December, some of us started a petition with Organise(a campaigning platform that exposed the wrongdoings at Ted Baker, among others).

Our Chief People Officer, Courtney Lynch, wrote to us in an email sent to all staff. She said, “Please be assured there is no room for harassing, bullying or inappropriate behaviour within our professional environment… We are taking these allegations seriously and will be conducting an independent investigation.”

We trusted her.

But then she left mysteriously and suddenly on 12 February.

More than 50 of us gave independent testimony to Hill Dickinson, really believing they would be independent and look after us. But we should have known better. They were being paid by UNiDAYS.

Hill Dickinson dragged on and on with this report. Eventually, they delivered it in March. UNiDAYS chairman, Matt Atkinson, a board member of supposedly ethical company Co-op, told us that he would share the findings of the report and its recommendations at a company-wide meeting on Friday 1 March.

The meeting was cancelled.

Matt rebooked it for March 11.

Then Matt emailed us to say “At the session I will share the recommendations and action plan following the ‘independent review’. I want to make sure you can see the specific actions that we will be taking to ensure we have a very positive and open culture to enable the future success of UNiDAYS.”

He didn’t. At the meeting, he told us, with a straight face, the law firm had found “no evidence of *systemic* wrongdoing.” It was a complete joke. After what we had told them, and everything. Now we don’t even know what the Rathours have on us after Courtney told us we were protected and safe. She’s gone. We are nervous and feel exposed. We expected better from Matt, with his Co-op background. We were duped.

More bullshit. But given that Josh Rathour and his family own most of the company is anyone surprised?

On this site, we have put together some of the stories they didn’t want you to hear.  Stories that have been buried by expensive lawyers and PR companies. Stories we told to Hill Dickinson.

They are here for you to read.

If we are lying, they can ‘prove’ it by publishing the report. As they promised to. We demand it.

And we demand Josh steps down and there is a change of ownership.  

We don’t want the company to fail, there are lots of good people here and we deserve to keep our jobs.

But change won’t happen unless our brands demand it. Money talks with the Rathours.

We know that at least one world leading beauty brand has said they accept this bullshit reports crap that there was no wrong doing. But there was.

We were the victims.

Will you add your voice?