Former employees at musician’s One Campaign allege they were ‘treated worse than dogs’

The anti-poverty campaign co-founded by Bono is being threatened with legal action by former employees who say they were bullied by a senior official for almost four years and that their complaints were not dealt with properly.

The One Campaign, created in 2004 to fight extreme poverty and preventable diseases, launched an investigation after a group of former employees from its Johannesburg office tweeted allegations of management misconduct, claiming that some staff in Africa were “treated worse than dogs”.

The group told an internal inquiry into events between 2011 and 2015 that they were repeatedly ridiculed and belittled, and that a supervisor ordered them to do domestic work at her home at weekends. Another alleged that she was demoted for refusing to become intimate with a foreign government official, after her manager made “sexist and suggestive comments” about her to him.

The allegations were revealed in a letter to members from Gayle Smith, who became One’s chief executive in March 2017. She said One had filed a serious incident report to the Charity Commission earlier this month.

The inquiry found that a former official subjected junior employees to “verbal or email statements such as calling individuals ‘worthless’, ‘stupid’ and an ‘idiot’, at times doing so in front of third parties,” One said.

Smith said the campaign had not been able to corroborate the “appalling claims” that the female employee had been demoted for not becoming intimate with the foreign official, but added: “We do not discount any allegation – we investigate them and will continue to do so should others arise.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bono with a young patient at a health centre in Rwanda in 2006. Photograph: Jose Cendon/AFP/Getty Images

Executive management had “repeatedly tried to address concerns raised by employees, and repeatedly acknowledged their failure in doing so”, One’s investigation concluded.

“The overall evidence from our investigation was sufficient for me to conclude that we needed to own an institutional failure,” Smith said.

Two of the women believed to be the subject of the complaints have strongly denied the allegations, and criticised One’s inquiry as one-sided, claiming they were themselves bullied and discriminated against.

Dr Sipho Moyo, who set up and ran One’s Johannesburg office for five years, said it had refused to describe what allegations had been made against her or show her a copy of the final report.

Last year, Moyo became aware that the campaign was holding an inquiry and says she wrote to Bono asking for any investigation to be inclusive and transparent.

Another senior former employee, who is also believed to have been accused of bullying, said she was aware the organisation was investigating allegations in November but was told by One that nothing had been tabled in her name.

Both Moyo and the accused former employee said they themselves had experienced discrimination or bullying behaviour while working at One, including being sidelined in their careers and being verbally abused.

In an email to the campaign’s former chief executive Michael Elliott, who died in 2016, Moyo said her health was deteriorating as a result of the working environment. She told Elliott that she had experienced “utter fear and extreme heart palpitations” during meetings with him, adding: “It is the first time in my life that I have lived and worked in utter fear of a boss. And I’ve had my share of bosses.”

The campaign said its recent inquiry had been designed to investigate claims made on social media and involved an extensive review of its records, adding: “If any current or former employees come to us with new allegations, we’ll investigate them in earnest as well.”

Moyo said that her team was given unrealistic workloads and was severely under-resourced. Between 2011-15, the Africa office received no more than 5% of the campaign’s overall budget, she said, adding that the opinions of managers in Washington or Europe were given more credence than those of African staff.

The campaign group also faces questions over the status of its Johannesburg office, which was not registered with the South African authorities until 2015, five years after it began operating. In a statement, One confirmed that during this period it was “acting as a non-resident taxpayer as it explored making Johannesburg its Africa hub”.

Its employees at the time were independent contractors, it said. “We can’t speak [about] decisions made by senior management then, but One today has systems in place to ensure all employees in its Johannesburg office have the proper visas and permits to live and work in South Africa. The same is true for all of One’s offices throughout North America, Europe, and Africa.”

One said it began working in Johannesburg in 2010 and that its budget there “has grown over time to be on a par with similarly sized One offices”.

It added: “Under the leadership of our new chief executive, our staff working in Africa are at the heart of our mission, and driving the organisation’s new vision and direction.”

One said it has introduced a number of reforms to provide greater protection to staff: “Over the last year, the organisation’s new leadership has worked hard to nurture a culture of respect and professionalism, and to ensure the organisation lives up to its values. One’s people are our most important asset.”