Bullying, mobbing on the rise in workplace, says ILO study

New Delhi, June 14 (UNI) Violence at work, ranging from bullying and mobbing to threats by psychologically unstable co-workers, sexual harassment and homicide, is increasing worldwide and has reached epidemic levels in some countries, says a new study of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Professions once regarded as sheltered from workplace violence such as teaching, social services, library services and health care are being exposed to increasing acts of violence both in developed and developing countries, according to the ILO study.

What is more, the global cost of workplace violence is enormous and costing untold millions of dollars in losses to countries due to causes including absenteesim and sick leave, it says.

''Bullying, harassment, mobbing and allied behaviours can be just as damaging as outright physical violence,'' say the authors of the study titled 'Violence at Work'.

''Today, the instability of many types of jobs places huge pressures on workplaces, and we're seeing more of these forms of violence,'' say Vittorio Di Martino, an international expert on stress and workplace violence and Duncan Chappel, former president of New South Wales Mental Health Review, Australia, who conducted the study.

The study also addresses growing concerns about terrorism, calling it ''one of the new faces of workplace violence...

contributing to the already-volatile mix of aggressive acts taking place on the job.'' In developing countries, the most vulnerable workers include women, migrants and children, says the report. In Malaysia, as many as 11,851 rape and molestation cases at the workplace were reported between 1997 and May 2001 and widespread sexual harassment and abuse were major concerns in South Africa, Ukraine, Kuwait and Hong Kong, it adds.

Bullying, harassment and intimidation were widespread in the European Union, according to a survey conducted in 2000. In Germany, a 2002 study estimated that more than 800,000 workers were victims of mobbing, ie. a group of workers targeting an individual for psychological harassment.

In Spain, an estimated 22 per cent of officials in public administration were victims of mobbing. In France, the number of acts of aggression against transport workers, including taxi drivers, rose from 3,051 in 2001 to 3,185 in 2002. In Japan, the number of cases brought before court counselors were 625,572 between April 2002 and March 2003. Of these, 5.1 per cent or almost 32,000 were related to harassment and bullying whereas from April to September 2003, it was 9.6 per cent, the report says.

In South Africa, workers in the health care sector bear the brunt of workplace violence, according to the study. Nine per cent of those employed in the private health sector and up to 17 per cent of those in the public sector experienced physical violence, says one survey.

On a more positive note, the study cited improvements in England, Wales and the United States. In England and Wales, the estimated 849,000 incidents of workplace violence in 2002-3 including 431,000 physical assaults and 418,000 threats represetned a decline from 1.3 million such incidents cited in a previous survey, says the ILO report.

In the United States, where homicide is the third leading cause of death at work, the number of workplace murders has declined in recent years, with a similar trend for non-fatal assaults, it says.

The report says women represent approximately 61 per cent of all victimised workers because of their concentration in jobs considered high-risk for assault.

ILO says the cost of workplace violence, while high, is often difficult to calculate. Some countries such as Australia, estimate costs to employers to be between 6 and 13 billion (Australian) dollars.

The study highlights a number of ''best practice'' examples from local and national governments, enterprises and trade unions from around the world that have successfully implemented ''zero tolerance'' policies and violence-prevention training programmes.

Many countries have now explicitly recognized violence in their national occupational health and safety legislation. Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Poland and Sweden recently adopted new legislation or amended existing laws and regulations to address violence at work.

ILO has adopted a number of fundamental Conventions on worker protection and dignity at work, including the ILO Code of Practice, 'Workplace violence in services sectors and measures to combat this phenomenon'.

UNI