Wednesday, 25 November 2009

Harassment at Work

Are you harassed by your manager?

Go through the definition of harassment hereunder and file a complaint with us today if you are harassed at the workplace. You have to take the first step to complain. We will do the rest.

 
·          Bullying
 
·          spreading malicious rumours, or insulting someone, particularly on gender, race or disability grounds;
 
·          ridiculing or degrading someone, picking on them or setting them up to fail;
 
·          exclusion or victimisation;
 
·          unfair treatment, for example, based on race, gender, sexual orientation, pregnancy, age, disability, religion, HIV status, etc;
 
·          overbearing supervision or other misuses of power or position;
 
·          unwelcome sexual advances;
 
·          making threats/comments about job security without foundation;
 
·          deliberately undermining a competent worker by overloading and constant criticism;
 
·          preventing individuals progressing by intentionally blocking promotion or training opportunities.
 
 
Every employee has the right to be treated with dignity and respect in the workplace, and employees do not have to tolerate harassment by employers.

The CCMA states that employers have a duty to protect workers from harassment, and employers should develop a code of conduct on harassment in consultation with the employees and employee representatives.
Harassment is in fact classed as an unfair discrimination and only results in a violation of human rights, poor morale among employees, causes unexplained absenteeism, late coming and poor concentration at work.  It is the cause of loss of productivity, and a major cause of workers resigning. When employees are unfairly discriminated against in this way, it is advisable that the employee should first confront the harasser directly, in the presence of a witness, and request the harasser to cease the harassment immediately.
  
Employees also have available to them the normal grievance procedures, or they can turn to their union or employees association for assistance.
 
Once the case has been reported, the employer is obliged to investigate the case and if necessary disciplinary action must be taken against the harasser.
 Any matters that cannot be resolved at employer level can be referred to the CCMA for conciliation and if a resolution is not reached by that process, then the matter will be referred to the Labour Court.
Harassment, because it constitutes unfair discrimination, falls within the jurisdiction of the Employment Equity Act.
 
Acknowledgement is made for the information contained in CCMA information sheet "Harassment" for the information contained in this article.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Robin Nicholson has been suspended. Why was he called back to do some work? What is really happening?

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