16.06.2021

WHAT DOES HARASSMENT IN THE WORKPLACE MEAN?

The Labor Code does not contain definitions of "harassment" and "violence" in the workplace, including on the basis of gender, as well as measures aimed at preventing them.

This may change if Bulgaria ratifies International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 190 on the Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the Field of Labor. Experts will discuss at a forum organized by CITUB and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation the need for Bulgaria to ratify the ILO Convention, BTA reported.

The Convention was adopted at the jubilee 108th session of the ILO in June 2019. For the first time, it formulates and proclaims a new labor law - the right of everyone to work without violence and harassment. The Convention is the first international instrument to protect the worker from such acts.

According to experts, unfortunately, violence in the workplace is still part of the reality of many professions, especially in the field of public services. In a large percentage of cases, violence or harassment is addressed to women. According to the ILO, 35 percent of women worldwide are victims of direct violence in the workplace. A total of 45% of women in the European Union claim to have been victims of one or another case of violence. Between 40 and 45 percent report being sexually harassed in the workplace.

According to a study by the European Trade Union Confederation published in March this year, employers, legislators and law enforcement agencies are not doing enough to tackle violence and harassment in the workplace. Only 23 percent of the women surveyed believe that employers have done enough to tackle violence and harassment in the workplace, including online violence. Only 16 percent say employers have updated their policies to deal with online harassment related to telework during the lockdown.

The same percentage say the laws in their country are strong enough to tackle violence and harassment in the workplace, including online, and 17 per cent believe they are being implemented properly. Most of the respondents indicate that they are very concerned about the problem in both the forms in which it is applied - online and offline.

ILO Convention 190 provides a clear definition of "violence and harassment" as "single or repetitive conduct, practice or threat, aimed at, leading to or likely to cause physical, psychological, sexual or economic harm". The Convention protects employees, regardless of their status, by including cases where the perpetrators are third parties - customers or service providers, and covers the impact of domestic violence on the work climate and process.

The extended interpretation of the definition of "worker" covers all activities that can be defined as work - with or without the traditional contractual relationship - and thus corresponds to the modern reality of a mobile and diverse world of work. The term covers workers also during their leave, trainees, jobseekers, dismissed and suspended, as well as those who are charged with the function of employers or perform the duties of such.

The Convention introduces definitions of "violence and harassment in the world of work" and "gender-based violence and harassment". Art. 127 of the Labor Code does not contain obligations for the employer or other persons to refrain from taking actions that constitute "harassment" and "violence" by virtue of the definition of Art. 1 of ILO Convention 190. There are no similar texts in the Civil Servant Act, as well as in other laws that generally or partially regulate the constitutional right to work.

In the Law on Protection against Discrimination there is a definition only for "harassment", but it differs from the definition in Art. 1 of Convention 190, given that in this law harassment (including that based on gender) is regulated from the point of view of creating inequality, inequality. While in the convention it is related to another special purpose - "causing physical, psychological, sexual or economic harm".

The Convention justifies a number of significant consequences related to harassment and violence. They have a negative impact on the quality of public and private services and can prevent people, especially women, from entering the labor market, staying in the workforce and developing professionally. Harassment and violence in the workplace adversely affect people's psychological state, physical and sexual health, their sense of dignity, their family environment and their social environment.