Workplace Violence and Harassment: a European Picture

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Workplace Violence and Harassment: a European PictureE u r o p e a n Ag e n c y f o r Sa f e t y a n d He a l t h a t Wo r kIlkiw-Lavalle (17) gives operational definitions for the purposes of the research:aggression is the overall term that refers to:(i)(ii)any act of verbal aggression directed towards others irrespective of outcome, forexample being loud and demanding, verbal hostility or verbal threats of intent todo harm; andphysical aggression (violence) is defined as any act involving the use of physicalforce onto others, objects, property, or the self, irrespective of outcome.In the British Crime Survey (BCS), violence at work is defined on the basis of the typeof offence (assaults or threats); what the victim was doing at the time of the incident(at work or working); and the relationship between victim and offender (18). Thedefinition of violence at work used by the BCS is ‘all assaults or threats, which occurredwhile the victim was working, that were perpetrated by members of the public’.OO Physical assaults include common assault, wounding, robbery and snatch theft.Threats include both verbal threats, made to or against the respondent and nonverbalintimidation. These are mainly threats to assault the victim, though somethreats relate to damaging property or harming others. The term violence is usedin the report to refer to both assaults and threats.OO Members of the public are clients or customers who the victim did not knowbefore the incident or people previously known to the victim, including friends,neighbours and local children.OO Excluded are incidents in which there was a domestic relationship between theoffender and victim (partners, ex-partners, relatives or household members) andincidents in which the offender was a work colleague. Cases of domestic violenceand violence between colleagues have been excluded as these incidents are likelyto be very different in nature from those involving members of the public.1.3.4. Definitions for harassment, bullying andmobbingThe termAlthough negative and hostile behaviour is not a new phenomenon, it has beenscientifically studied for only about 20 years. No general agreement on the definitionor of the terms to be used, of ‘harassment’ and ‘bullying’ exists so far betweeninstitutions, researchers and practitioners in the field.Several terms such as bullying (19), mobbing (20), harassment (8, 21), psychologicalharassment (22), abusive behaviour, emotional abuse (23), and workplace aggression(24) have been used. Sometimes these terms have been used interchangeably;sometimes they mean different things. As indicated previously, the terms ‘mobbing’and ‘bullying’ are also used to differentiate between negative behaviour by groupsand negative behaviour by a single person. Nowadays, most researchers in the fielduse the term bullying, for example in scientific articles written in English.In different countries, terms other than bullying are used to indicate similar behaviourin the workplace, for example work or employee abuse, mistreatment, bossing,victimisation, intimidation, psychological terrorisation, psycho-terror, psychologicalviolence, inappropriate treatment, or unwanted behaviour.At a national level, words like harcèlement moral, harcèlement psychologique (French),assédio no local de trabalho, assédio moral (Portuguese), acoso moral, hostigamientopsicológico, psicoterror laboral, and maltrato psicológico (Spanish), tormoz (Bulgarian),20
Workplace Violence and Harassment: a European Picturekiusaaminen (Finnish), and mobbning (Sweden) are used in relation to harassment. InItaly, Poland and Germany, the term mobbing has been widely adopted. In the UnitedKingdom, the term bullying is used.The definitionHarassment and bullying have mostly been defined by researchers. Carol Brodskywrote the first book about harassment at work in 1976 (21). She defined harassment as‘repeated and persistent attempts by one person to torment, wear down, frustrate, orget a reaction from another. It is treatment that persistently provokes, pressures,frightens, intimidates, or otherwise discomfits other people’.Heinz Leymann, the pioneer of the workplace bullying research as it is now, definedpsychological terror or mobbing in working life as ‘hostile and unethicalcommunication, which is directed in a systematic way by one or a few individualsmainly towards one individual who, due to mobbing, is pushed into a helpless anddefenceless position, being held there by means of continuing mobbing activities.These actions occur on a very frequent basis (statistical definition: at least once aweek) and over a long period of time (statistical definition: at least six months)’ (20).Ståle Einarsen, the leading modern researcher into bullying, with his colleagues at theUniversity of Bergen, states that ‘to label something as bullying, it has to occurrepeatedly over a long period of time, and the person confronted has to havedifficulties in defending him/herself. It is not bullying if two parties of approximatelyequal ‘strength’ are in conflict or the incident is an isolated one’ (19).A definition used, for example, by Hoel & Cooper (25) in the United Kingdom is verysimilar. Bullying is ‘a situation where one or several individuals persistently, over aperiod of time, perceive themselves to be on the receiving end of negative actionsfrom one or several persons, in a situation where the target of bullying has difficultyin defending him or herself against these actions. We will not refer to a one-offincident as bullying’.In Germany, Zapf (26) talks about mobbing and defines it as ‘harassing, bullying,offending, socially excluding someone or assigning offending work tasks to someone.It is a process in the course of which the person confronted end up in an inferiorposition’.Di Martino (27), gives a somewhat different definition for bullying/mobbing, ‘a form ofpsychological harassment consisting of persecution through vindictive, cruel, ormalicious attempts to humiliate or undermine an individual or groups of employees,including unjustified, constant negative remarks or criticisms, isolating a person fromsocial contacts and gossiping or spreading false information’.In some definitions intent to cause harm is also included. For example, Björkqvist,Österman and Lagerspetz (28) define work harassment as ‘repeated activities, withthe aim of bringing mental (but sometimes also physical) pain and directed towardsone or more individuals who, for one reason or another, are not able to defendthemselves’. Moreover, in the definition used in the framework agreement onharassment and violence at work, harassment ‘occurs when one or more worker ormanager are repeatedly and deliberately abused, threatened and/or humiliated incircumstances related to work’. In the definition used by O’Moore et al. (29) in Ireland,enjoyment of the perpetrator is also included: ‘only inappropriate aggressivebehaviour that is systematic and enjoyed is regarded as bullying’.E u r o p e a n Ag e n c y f o r Sa f e t y a n d He a l t h a t Wo r k21
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