Alibaba fires manager for allegedly sexually assaulting employee, Retail News, ET Retail

Shanghai:

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. fired a manager who allegedly sexually assaulted an employee and will establish policies to prevent sexual harassment, general manager Daniel Zhang said on Monday.

The director – of Alibaba’s City Retail unit, which offers grocery delivery to local supermarkets – “has been fired and will never be rehired,” Zhang said in a note posted on Alibaba’s intranet. and seen by Reuters. The man told management that there had been “intimate acts” with the employee while she was intoxicated, Zhang said in the note, adding that police were investigating the case. .

Reuters could not reach the individual for comment.

“Alibaba Group has a zero tolerance policy against sexual misconduct, and ensuring a safe workplace for all of our employees is Alibaba’s top priority,” a company spokesperson told Reuters on the note. .

Over the weekend, an employee posted an 11-page account on Alibaba’s intranet in which she said her supervisor and a client sexually assaulted her while on a business trip and that officials had not taken action.

Threads related to the incident went on to rank among the trending on Weibo, China’s Twitter-style microblog, which was ignited by the anti-sexual harassment movement #MeToo’s discussion following a sex scandal. of celebrities last week. Zhang said that the president and the head of human resources of the City Retail unit had resigned following the incident and that the director of human resources of Alibaba had “received a demerit.” The investigation of other people mentioned in the victim’s account is ongoing, Zhang added in the note.

Alibaba will conduct company-wide sexual harassment prevention training and launch a channel for staff to report incidents, Zhang said in the note. It will also publish a formal zero tolerance policy against sexual harassment.

Zhang also said that Alibaba was fiercely opposed to “the horrible culture of forced consumption.”

The note detailed the victim’s account of the incident, in which she recalled superiors ordering her to drink alcohol with colleagues at a dinner party on a business trip. “Regardless of gender, whether it is a request made by a client or a supervisor, our employees have the authority to reject it,” Zhang said in the memo. “This incident is a humiliation for all Alibaba employees. We have to rebuild and we have to change,” he said.