Email Harassment at work

[golfillini2]

8 months ago I challenged my union official over his confrontational behaviour to other work colleagues. This did not go down well with him and so began his emails to my manager about my alleged poor work ethics.Prior to my challenging him I never had any complaints about my work.

 

Finally I organised a vote of no confidence and he was ousted as the union rep and I was elected in his place. As you can imagine this did not go down well with him and at every opportunity he would send an email to my manager complaining about me. A lot of these emails I was not copied in on.

 

After 8 months I had enough and I am now off sick with work related Stress and Anxiety.

 

I have now lodged a Grievance against him, but as I am a civil servant this procedure is very slow.

 

Can someone advise me as to the definition of work related email harassment and what rights I have. My management appear to be not taking this situation seriously and I am at my wits end.

[honeybee13]

Hello there.

 

This sounds awful for you and I hope we can help. Do you have evidence of any of the emails please?

 

My best, HB

[golfillini2]

Hello HB

 

Yes I have an email trail going back to march of this year. I have requested a SAR from my local data team for any emails that I have not been copied in on and am awaiting the results.

 

Since I became the union rep in my workplace in July of this year his wife ( Our union H&S rep ) has complained to senior union officials alleging I am not acting for all the work force which is again untrue. These emails to senior officials which are blatant lies I only found out about from another rep and I have been very disappointed with the lack of concern or reaction from these senior union officials. It feels like they are against me because I challenged and organised his ousting as the union official.

[honeybee13]

Hello again.

 

What you say doesn't sound good and I hope the guys will be able to comment and help you.

 

HB

[postggj]

first question i am going to ask

 

are you a certificated work place IR REP

 

has your union branch office arranged any sort of traning yet as you say you have only been a rep since july

[golfillini2]

Hello there

 

I can confirm I am a certificated IR Rep and I have been on one course so far. Am down to go on some more courses early 2013. The problem I have is that this previous Rep had built up a long term relationship with these senior union officials and they have been unable to to back to back me and have ignored all my requests for advise.

[postggj]

do you go to the monthly branch meetings to air your concerns

[golfillini2]

We have our meetings quarterly in London. I am based in the Devon so most of our contact is via email or telephone. I did contact Senior Officials as soon as I found out about the emails that were sent tot them and expressed my concerns about being undermined at such an early stage in my role as the Rep. The tone of their reply was not helpful at all and that is why I have been forced to go down the official route with my employer

[Atlas01]

Without the finite detail of the emails its impossible to know if your over-reacting or the other party is a fool who has put his own issues in writing. I guess from your first post you expect a certain level of backlash but i can't see if his complaints are in regard to you, your work or your union duties. I ask because your union will have its own grievance procedure, if i had a rep doing this when i was a TU official i would be very clear it was an internal union issue to be left for the union to deal with if speaking to your manager.

 

how about a little more info, from what you have written it does sound like there is a case against this person but even though i know TU's at higher level need a tazer jolt, beauty is in the eye of the beholder just as perception is as relevant as hearsay

 

as a tip i always found with the civil service type employer who stall on formal grievances writing to them stating their failure to respond is now taken as a failure to agree and that you therefore wish for your grievance to be moved to the next stage usually wakes them into starting the process a with a little more haste (I always give at least 2 weeks on lodging if no reply, sometimes longer with more complex issues, if the word grievance was turned into a pictorial form it would be a picture of a sleeping sloth, get used to it!)