About time: Experts gang up on underdeveloped, oversensitive bullying code

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Darin Sullivan in Main

WITHHOLDING information and training, not providing enough work or assigning tasks beneath a worker’s qualifications will all become instances of workplace bullying, under a proposed code of conduct by Safe Work Australia.

Preventing and Responding to Workplace Bullying is only in its draft stage but bullying experts say the document does not go far enough in defining the myriad types of bullying behaviour and, in some cases, also leaves the employer unfairly exposed to accusations of inaction.

The final draft will go to the Workplace Relations Ministers’ Council and could inform future workplace laws in NSW, which has no specific anti-bullying legislation. Victoria introduced a maximum 10-year sentence for proved serious bullying offences earlier this year, following the 2006 suicide of 19-year-old Brodie Panlock.

Her three co-workers could only be convicted and fined under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, as there was no criminal provision.
Queensland and South Australia are now looking at adopting legislation similar to Victoria’s.

The draft document was a ”helpful step”, said Dan Riley, a senior lecturer at the University of New England’s School of Business, Economics and Public Policy and a researcher into workplace bullying. However, the document had some flaws, including the failure to distinguish between overt and covert bullying behaviours.
”Some bullies use the system to shift the focus of the bullying from themselves to the bullying being caused by the organisational expectations within the existing environment,” Dr Riley said. That an employer could potentially be open to litigation because they failed to act on an informal verbal complaint, which could be as little as a passing remark, was also of concern, he said, along with the absence of recognition that over-sensitive workers could perceive bullying behaviour from colleagues or bosses, when no such behaviour was intended.

The psychologist and author Evelyn Field said that the draft document’s definition of bullying as ”repeated behaviour” excluded the possibility of a worker being traumatised after a single incident. The emphasis on mediation was also of concern.

”There’s very little evidence mediation works in cases of bullying because [mediation] relies on the assumption of equal power,” she said. ”Bullying at work happens when there is unequal power.” The draft document is open for public comment until December 16.