Employment law measures ‘must be taken against bullying’

Posted 10/11/2009

A trade union has called for employment law to be changed in order to stamp out bullying in the workplace.

Unison has conducted a survey which reveals that a third of those polled have been a victim of bullying behaviour in the last six months, with examples including rudeness, excessive criticism and intimidation.

This figure is twice the one recorded in a similar 1997 study, with many of those questioned suggesting they have been driven out of their jobs because of bullying.

Dave Prentis, the union’s general secretary, described the statistics as “shocking” and stated that Unison will now be lobbying for workplace bullying to be made illegal under employment law.

He said: “Employers [should] start to make a stand against bullies, or face losing more staff, money and morale.”

This comes in the wake of a number of national strikes by Royal Mail workers, with bullying by management having been cited as one of the reasons behind the industrial action.