In December 2013 I wrote:
“The Age is correct in saying that claims of workplace bullying are “set to soar”. This has been predicted for some time, even privately by members of the Fair Work Commission, but the number of claims does not always indicate the level of a problem.” (link added)
Recently the Fair Work Commission (FWC) released its first quarterly report into anti-bullying applications and the statistics indicate that there is no soaring of claims. Sadly the report does not provide analysis only facts. According to the FWC media release, in the first quarter of 2014 FWC received 151 anti-bullying applications, 32 were withdrawn and 16 were “resolved during proceedings”. The report itself shows that the majority of applications were made by employees in companies of more than 100 employees and most of them concerned allegations of unreasonable behaviour by their manager. The top three industries where applications originated are, from highest to lowest:
- Clerical industry,
- Retail industry, and
- Health and Welfare.
Sadly the sex of the applicants is not listed. This is a shame as the Parliamentary Inquiry into Workplace Bullying tried to identify if workplace bullying was more common in industries that predominantly employed women. It seems as if the triage process of case management implemented by the FWC is working with 23 cases (around 15%) withdrawn during this process.
Carlo Caponecchia predicted that the floodgates would not eventuate and posited three potential reasons, reasons that more analysis of data by FWC could help validate or dispel.
“Firstly, defence personnel and most state government employees will not be able to make a claim to the FWC”
“Second, no damages can be awarded by the FWC for bullying claims”
“The third point is that people making a claim have to be currently employed at the workplace”
As Caponecchia said, these three elements change the dynamics of claiming workplace bullying. Here’s hoping that someone in the FWC or the government is analysing the workplace bullying applications so that OHS and HR professionals can better understand bullying and the organisational dynamics (the work environment) in which it occurs.
