Bullying in the workplace!

[Beware!]

I have a friend who was bullied by a male manager at A Well Known Retail Store. I witnessed my friend being bullied and unfortunately, could not complain about it because I am still employed by this company.

 

The male manager spoke to my friend aggressively, overloaded them with work and discriminated against them.

 

My friend was bullied for over a year. Over this period, my friend made several complaints to HR and their line manager's boss who is the Company Secretary of the parent company. None of the managers did anything to help my friend in anyway and instead supported the manager who bullied my friend.

 

My friend was bullied by their work colleagues in front of other people in the business for raising a grievance against their manager.

 

The company refused a request from my friend to be transferred to another department while the grievance was being heard which would have prevented further bullying by colleagues in the team.

 

My friend then went off sick immediately afterwards and this time for several months. During this time, the company did nothing to help my friend return to work. My friend was forced to resign.

 

My friend has pursued employment and personal injury claims against the store concerned. I am considering leaving the company as soon as possible, because I cannot stand working for a company that has no sympathy for people who are bullied in the workplace and instead support this type of behaviour. I would not recommend working for This Company.

Edited September 11, 2010 by Sidewinder
Removed Company Name

[Sidewinder]

Apologies for the moderation, but we cannot have the company name included in an unsubstantiated allegation of this nature.

 

Is there any practical help we may provide, or was this just a warning to others?

[jackieandwayne]

Good for you for publicising this - there is far too much of it going on in the workplace. I tell you what I would do, but I am a devil, I would now file a greivance about what I witnessed going on and say it had made me feel terribly guilty and I couldn't live with it any longer (Not far from the truth in my case - I watched this happen to a colleague of mine before it was my turn and I know I should have said something at the time.... don;t worry too much about her though, much better job, and suing the bottom off them with me bringing up the rear with my claim!). Stir up a right old hornets nest as high as you can before you leave, follow the grievance right through, see if they are stupid enough to fire you for demanding your rights etc.... You may laugh - I did just this and it caused a rather large company to completely rewrite their bullying policy (or rather very quickly introduce one!).

 

You go for it.

[papasmurf1cx]

Hi Beware... I posted on this link previously but it doesn't seem to have logged in. Anyway I would also say that what you are planning is very noble. So here is a couple of legal pointers.

 

First of all ensure before starting any action that you have in place a legal protection policy covering employment disputes (and as was pointed out in another thread that it covers discrimination issues if you can although perhaps that is what is happening now ie exclusion of DDA matters). This is because if you create the waves that are anticipated then you may well be in need of it. It can be very stressful.

 

I take it that you could and would make a statement to your friends solicitors in furtherance of his dispute. Does that dispute have as an allegation some form of discrimination as you state eg Race Sex or Disability Discrimination?

 

If you raise the grievance and mention by name the bullying and discrimination you witnessed and the company and its managers then start bullying you because of it, the fact that you raise a grievance (ie a process that could end up in an Employment Tribunal) you could raise as a secondary grievance an act of victimisation on you (even if you don't have a disability, racial or sex allegation of discrimination).

 

It might help if you co ordinated all this with the friend / solicitor as they will know how far up the management chain this discrimination has thus far reached.

 

jackieandwayne... I know what you mean on creating new policies around your complaints.... in my wife's grievance they created a new policy, substantially rewrote another and two others had to have substantial additions to them. The funny thing is that even after all that work the policies are ILLEGAL because they seek to negate the law of the land and so are worthless in law. They are there to confuse and justify management lies.

[Beware!]

Thank you "papasmurf1cx" and "jackieandwayne" for your

advice and support. I have spoken to my friend recently and it

appears that this claim maybe in the public domain in a matter of

weeks.

It is appalling that a UK leading home and general merchandise retailer with families as their primary customer base can encourage bullying in the workplace.

 

.

Edited September 27, 2010 by Beware!
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