Belabouring the Bullying: the Backdrop to New Laws and Best Practice
From 1 January 2014, the Fair Work Commission will have new powers to hear complaints from workers who believe they have been bullied at work. This is the first time that a specific jurisdiction has been established to deal with bullying in Australia, or elsewhere. This may come as a surprise to many employers, given that an allegation of bullying seems to be stapled onto every response to an over-enthusiastic performance discussion with an employee. The vagaries of pinning down exactly what "bullying" is makes a bullying claim an easy one for employees to make (and a difficult claim to defend). This is why claims of bullying are fast replacing the unfair dismissal claim as the disgruntled employee's remedy of choice. In terms of potential liability for an employer, the risks will soon become significantly greater. Any conduct which is likely to cause a stress related injury can already be prosecuted by WorkCover (or a similar authority) under Work Health and Safety laws. These laws provide brutal sanctions against employers who fail to ensure the psychological well-being of their workers. They also provide sanctions against officers of the employer who fail to undertake reasonable due diligence to ensure that their company is compliant. Unfortunately, the new laws tend to exacerbate issues arising out of the existing legal matrix rather than solving them, by linking the definition of bullying directly to a health and safety risk.
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CANADA: The Presence of Psychological Risks or Mental Illnesses in the Workplace
Mental illness is a recognized disability under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). Canadian companies and employees across the country can turn to a new national standard to help them identify and address psychological risks and mental health issues in the workplace. The Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace standard was released on January 16, 2013, by the Canadian Standards Association. Some health experts define psychological risk as a product of a life-changing event with significant emotional, physical and spiritual consequences that can lead to mental illness. The hope is that the standard will introduce mental health awareness and promotion to Canada’s workplaces, and lead them to greater success. The benefits of psychologically healthy employees are too great to ignore, and the risks of unhealthy employees, too dangerous. Some businesses will use the standard to plan their psychological health and safety program and process. By using the information and audit tool in the guide, along with existing workplace data (i.e., rates of accidents, injury and illnesses, rate of absenteeism, how employees use your benefits plan, disability rates and costs), organizations will learn where the gaps exist in psychological health and safety in their workplace. These resources will also help organizations assess their current efforts to manage and support psychological health and safety in the workplace, and what other measures they can implement to improve or fill a need.
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FRANCE: Newspaper Shooting Suspect Arrested
After a two-day nationwide manhunt, French police arrested a man suspected of shooting a newspaper assistant photographer and three other attacks. The motive for the attacks remains unclear. Interior Minister Manuel Valls identified the suspect as Abdelhakim Dekhar, convicted in 1998 as an accomplice in a high-profile 1994 robbery and car chase that left three police officers and a taxi driver dead. Dekhar served four years in prison in the so- called Rey-Maupin affair but authorities had no trace of him in recent years, Valls said. Based on DNA data, authorities believe he was the lone gunman behind the shooting at the prominent daily newspaper Liberation, a shooting outside French bank Societe Generale, a brief hostage-taking in which the suspect hijacked a car, and a similar shooting incident three days before at news network BFM-TV. The shooting prompted cries of concern about attacks on the media. Security was tightened at media offices and on the busy Champs-Elysees shopping avenue. Dekhar apparently tried to kill himself before he was arrested. Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the French prosecutor's office, said the suspect appeared heavily medicated when he was detained.
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