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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
46 — village july 2009
Bullying
by the Irish Su-
preme Court to overturn a High Court award
of €, for bullying and harassment at
Complex Tooling & Moulding Ltd., will com-
fort employers weighed down by stringent la-
bour laws. The Court adjudged that the plain-
tiff failed to discharge the burden of proof that
his depression was caused by the way he was
treated at work.
However, it would be folly to take this de-
cision as some kind of mandate for alleviat-
ing the impact of the economic downturn via
a more robust style of management. The UK’s
employment tribunal recently upheld a £m
claim against F & C Asset Management for staff
bullying.
Bullying In Ireland
In early the Samaritans’ survey across
Ireland and Britain estimated that four out of
five workers had been bullied during their ca-
reers. This is a significant jump on research
undertaken seven years earlier at Trinity
College, Dublin, which reported that % of
workers in Ireland claim to have been victim-
ised at work.
Just last year the Economic and Social Re-
search Institute reported that % of people
had experienced bullying within the previous
six months, with women about twice as affect-
ed. It is also notable however, that a survey of
, people at Lancaster University in
found that men and women were guilty as per-
petrators of bullying in fairly equal numbers –
that is, it’s a genderless type of tendency.
Who’s Who?
The list of organisations tainted by such prac-
tices reads like a directory of eminent employ-
ers. For example, both Aer Lingus and First
National Building Society (now First Active
plc) have lost Chief Executives arising from
bullying, whilst luminaries like RTE, Dunnes
Stores, Ryanair, An Post, Independent News-
papers, Atlantic Homecare, the Irish Blood
Transfusion Service, Tesco, the Clarion Ho-
tel, the Prison Service, Dublin City University,
and the health, education and local author-
ity sectors have all found themselves endur-
ing some notoriety arising from allegations
of harassment.
What Happens?
Though most bullying takes the form of ver-
bal abuse and insults, it can also extend to set-
ting unrealistic work targets, devaluing work
done, depriving staff of responsibility and so-
cial exclusion. Remote though the latter form
may seem, it’s exactly what the Employment
Appeals Tribunal found Dunnes Stores to
have done with its head of security - by mov-
ing him from his office at group headquarters
to a small room under a staircase at the ILAC
Shopping Centre in Dublin.
And as a recruitment agency discovered
earlier this year to their cost, bullying and ha-
rassment will be judged inappropriate even if
occurring outside normal working hours. In
this case, behaviour at an after work drinks’
session accompanied by late-night offensive
text messages fell foul of the Tribunal.
According to the Chartered Institute of
Personnel & Development, costs – in addition
to those arising from legal actions - associ-
ated with such, include increased absentee-
ism, labour turnover and overtime costs, re-
duced staff morale, productivity and customer
satisfaction and public opporbrium. Sorcha
Finnegan at O’Donnell Sweeney solicitors
warns employers that: “On almost a weekly
basis, cases come before the Employment Ap-
peals Tribunal in Ireland which achieve media
attention in which allegations of harassment,
sexual harassment and bullying are made. The
message is that the public are interested.”
Who’s The Aggressor?
The research from Trinity College cited earli-
er suggests that most bullying comes from the
victim’s manager (%), with peers ()% and
one’s own staff (%) also featuring. Of course
it’s also possible that the inappropriate behav-
iour comes from the employers’ clients or cus-
tomers, in respect of which the employer may
well also be liable.
For example, in the Labour Court
awarded over €, to two second-level
teachers who were sexually harassed by male
pupils at their De La Salle school in Wicklow.
The Court concluded that the teachers had not
been afforded protection from such behaviour
and that they were victimised by the school for
reporting the incidents.
Third-party determinations also confirm
that the effect of such behaviour is what is im-
portant, not the intent. Hence adjudicating
parties must pay heed to the fact that the re-
cipient decides what is acceptable or offensive.
Notably, courts are not empowered to dismiss
Four out of five workers have
been bullied during their careers
d r g e r a r d m a c m a c h o n
