Closing the door to workplace bullying

Bullying and harassment can lead to significant penalties under safety laws, as a recent Victorian case demonstrates. A manufacturer has been fined $10,000 and ordered to pay costs after being convicted of an offence for exposing a young employee to bullying and harassment at the workplace.

The incident

Elite Windows (Vic) Pty Ltd is a window and door manufacturer. Over the course of 8 months, an apprentice joiner was a victim of bullying and harassment by a qualified joiner. The behaviour included:

name calling;
recording when the apprentice went to the bathroom;
threatening the apprentice and inciting him to fight; and
interfering with the apprentice by deliberately bumping him.

Charge and sentencing

The Court heard that Elite Windows could have eliminated or reduced inappropriate workplace behaviours or bullying by:

maintaining a standard of behaviour that was expected of employees within the workplace, including providing information and examples of inappropriate behaviours and bullying;
conveying how and to whom employees should report inappropriate workplace behaviours and bullying;
explaining the role of managers and supervisors in responding to reports of inappropriate behaviour and bullying; and
implementing a response process that would be triggered if an incident was reported.

Elite Windows pleaded guilty and in addition to a $10,000 fine, they were ordered to pay costs of about $7,500.

Prevent bullying in your workplace

Bullying has the potential to result in serious health and safety risks – both physical, such as when the bullying has physical components like assault, and psychological. Workers exposed to bullying can develop both short and long-term injury or illness, including severe mental illness. It's part of your health and safety duty to reduce the risk of bullying as far as reasonably practicable. Not only will taking proactive steps to prevent bullying, and responding swiftly to cases that arise, help you meet your health and safety duty, it will minimise disruption to your workplace and reduce the chance of stress claims.

Explore the health and safety risks and legal ramifications of workplace bullying, and how you can prevent and effectively respond to it, in the Health & Safety Handbook chapter, Bullying.

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