Work related Stress, Bullying and Harassment

On Monday we had our regional health & safety committee. We held committee elections (I am now the London rep to National Health & Safety committee), discussed the usual minutes, matters arising, then reports, budget, conference fringe (new “Violence at Work” booklet), issues regarding the HSE, Hazards conference, Workers Memorial Day, European health & safety week and why no national safety seminar this year.

Afterwards we had a Network meeting of London branch safety officers with guest speaker, Henrietta Phillips (pictured with Chair, all round nice bloke, John Caulfield), who is a personal injury specialist from trade union solicitors, Thompsons.

Henrietta started off by pointing out how prevalent work related stress was – 1/3rd of all new incidences of ill health, average of 30.2 working days per year and a total of 13.8 million days were lost last year. Despite being so widespread it is notoriously difficult to get compensation, but not impossible.

Being off sick with "stress" is not enough by itself; you have to have a clinically recognised psychological or psychiatric condition (diagnosed by a psychiatrist). You have to be able to prove “causation of injury” and that your illness is linked to work. Solicitors acting for the employers will have access to your medical records and will try to prove that your illness is non-work related e.g. marital or financial problems. There are also strict time limits. You must usually commence court proceedings within 3 years.

Proving negligence or a clear breach of duty is not enough, you also need to show clear evidence that the employer should have foreseen the risk of psychiatric injury to the individual from work. So – tell your employer if you are suffering or are otherwise vulnerable. In the real world of work, its not that easy. Maybe better still, get a GP or a mental health professional to tell your employer you are vulnerable. Hopefully this will get their alarm bells ringing.

At one stage, it looked like the "Protection from Harassment Act" could be used to gain compensation from employers who failed to take adequate steps to stop their employees bullying and threatening other staff. An unhelpful Court appeal means at the moment (unless it is overturned) that action can only be successful if the harassment is extremely physically violent.

One positive thing is that the courts have somewhat overturned a previous ruling that if an employer offers a confidential advice service that they can refer employees to then they are “unlikely to be found in breach of duty”. I remember several years ago being shocked by a senior manager boasting how his organisation would never be sued because they offered a telephone help line.

I think trade unionists need to send a message that you cannot rely on the law to remedy your employment problems. People genuinely have the wrong impression of how easy it is “to go to law”. The tabloid press gives the impression that you can get huge pay outs if your boss forgot to say good morning to you. This is rubbish. The best way to protect yourself at work is via a well-organised trade union to challenge employment practices that make people ill in the first place.

Maybe also we ought to consider a “no fault” compensation scheme for workers who become seriously ill thorough work without having to prove employer negligence. It may put quite a few highly paid lawyers out of business. I think that Thompsons will be one of the few that won’t mind.