Workplace Violence and Harassment: a European Picture

Workplace Violence and Harassment: a European Picture(ii)personal harassment (e.g. insulting or offensive remarks, spreading of gossip andrumours);(iii) organisational harassment (e.g. having key areas of responsibility removed orreplaced with more trivial or unpleasant tasks, being given tasks below one’scompetence); and(iv) intimidation (e.g. threats of violence or physical abuse, and behaviour such asfinger-pointing, exposure to shouting or spontaneous anger).The situation in France gives one example of the use and content of the termharassment, and also of institutional harassment. In France, the term harassmentencompasses different forms:OO institutional harassment which forms part of a management strategy for all thestaff; the violence is not an episodic or individual problem but indeed structuraland strategic;OO professional harassment organised against one or several precisely designatedemployees, intended to get round legal redundancy procedures;OO individual harassment committed gratuitously with the aim of destroying anotherand exploiting one’s own power; andOO moral harassment which is a technique of destruction and not a clinical syndrome.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 kThe perpetratorsHarassment and bullying is, by some researchers, further delimited in to negative actsinside the workplace, by workmates, supervisors or managers or subordinates. In manystudies, the possible perpetrator could also have been a client, customer or the like. Indifferent kinds of interventions carried out to prevent and manage harassment andbullying, the focus of the interventions have, however, been in situations happeninginside the workplace between the staff and not ‘external’.The status of the perpetrator seems to vary between countries. In Norway, the bullieshave been shown to be co-workers and supervisors equally often (19), while inSweden and in Finland the bullies have been reported to be colleagues somewhatmore often than supervisors (34, 35, 36). In the United Kingdom and in Ireland, thesupervisor or manager is most often perceived as the perpetrator (e.g. 37, 38, 39, 40).However, subordinates, as well as clients, are also reported to be perpetrators to somedegree. In the United Kingdom, managers were reported to be the bullies in 75 %,colleagues in 37 %, subordinates in 7 %, and clients in 8 % of the situations (25). InFinland, of all the wage earners, 9 % reported having been subjected to bullying bysupervisors, 14 % by co-workers, 1 % by subordinates, and 5 % by clients (41).Inside the workplace, women are bullied about equally often by other women ormen, men are more often bullied by other men than women (e.g. 25, 34). In the caseof sexual harassment, women are most often harassed by their male colleague orsupervisor, sometimes the harasser is a female colleague or supervisor.1.3.5. Sexual harassmentIn Directive 2002/73/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (42) of23 September 2002 amending Council Directive 76/207/EEC on the implementationof the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards access toemployment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions sexualharassment at work is mentioned:23