Workplace Bullying Organisational Harassment

national | worker & community struggles and protests | opinion/analysis

Friday April 11, 2008 09:51

by Dave Walsh

Competency Complacency

There is fundamental little that can be done to counter bullying in the workplace.

There is fundamental little that can be done to counter bullying in the workplace if there is an existing culture that condones it or if there is a industrial wide culture of it within particular sectors. There is little to protect the welfare of workers in particular in temporary or part time work. The fact is that when it comes down to harassment it is your word against a group of people and if a culture has prevailed for a long period, it is unlikely that the culture will be changed for one or two individuals. The fact is that the health and safety authority has only the power to ask the organisation for its anti bullying policy. The time has come for workplace health to be looked proactively. Many of our institutions and businesses are old and long established, and the structure and cultures within them have become stagnant. Workers in some sectors and within some departments or sections pass through like and assembly line, while H/R may be aware of the problem, the largely see it as one of frustratingly having to move people or rehire, while the actual working conditions are never looked at in real terms and problems are never addressed. H/R view is often that addressing the problem may cost both money and disruption, and their main emphasis is on keeping work flowing. So what you end up with is not a health happy work environment, but one in which only individuals that reflect the prevailing environment can tolerate. The emphasis must be that the individuals that pass through are somewhat strange and status quo is thought to be returned once the trouble maker is gone. In terms of addressing health in a proactive way, Ireland is still in the dark ages. The answers are to vast to consider not making changes as being in anyway intelligent or moral. The department of enterprise trade and employment has a section that drafts ledgislation on bullying, but does not seem to have enforcment powers. Purhaps its time to change things..