A Bill has been presented to MPs to provide for a statutory definition of bullying at work and to make provision relating to bullying at work, including to enable claims relating to workplace bullying to be considered by an employment tribunal.
The new Bill also proposes to provide for a Respect at Work Code to set minimum standards for positive and respectful work environments and to give powers to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to investigate workplaces and organisations where there is evidence of a culture of, or multiple incidents of, bullying and to take enforcement action.
Rachel Maskell, Labour and Co-operative MP for York Central, presented the private members’ bill and has received cross-party support.
The TUC reports that bullying is the second biggest workplace issue. Some 29% of workers will experience workplace bullying at some point, and one in 10 has experienced it in the past six months. Academia backs those figures up. That lack of access to redress and justice explains why 53% of those who are bullied never report it.
Bullying costs UK businesses 18 billion a year, and according to the Health and Safety Executive, over 17 million working days are lost each year due to work-related negative behaviours such as bullying. Sometimes bullying is corporate, embedded in the culture of an organisation. Sometimes it is peer on peer, where workers are left out, denigrated publicly or privately, and targeted or ignored.
Without protection, many workers...
The Southport attacker, Axel Rudakubana, has suffered a violent assault and been attacked by another prisoner while in prison. False. The Ministry of Justice has confirmed that the claim is untrue ...