DO NOT DELAY ANTI-BULLYING LEGISLATION

“Bullying is persistent unwelcome behaviour, mostly using unwarranted or invalid criticism; nit-picking, fault-finding, also exclusion, isolation, being singled out and treated differently, being shouted at, humiliated, excessively monitored, having verbal and written warnings imposed, and much more.”

Bullying does not happen in schools only. Grown-ups also indulge in or face bullying of peers and superiors. In the workplace, bullying usually focuses on distorted or fabricated allegations of underperformance or ineptitude. Bullying is a form of abuse, and bullies - and unenlightened employers - always go to great lengths to keep their targets quiet, using threats of disciplinary action, dismissal, and gagging clauses. Often eligible benefits are denied to the victim. In countries like Canada, bullying is known as Mobbing.

It is perhaps, time that we in India began recognising workplace bullying not as an acceptable style of effective management, but as violence directed at the mental well-being of employees. Capitalism having been given a free reign in our economy and the might-is-right attitude re-accepted as sound social philosophy, we have kind of been bullied into treating all anti-labour and inhuman types of management as progressive, in the emerging neo-liberal system.

It is not only the multi-lateral banks which shout hoarse that India’s pro-labour laws are its biggest deterrent to progress; our popular politicians and political parties of all hues have also come round to the view that our labour needs to be controlled more. This in a country where bondage and virtual slavery still exist in the agriculture and mining sectors! Labour that make demands for fairness and justice, and dare to use the strike weapon are very casually described as irresponsible nowadays.

Work place bullying is yet to be given due attention here possibly because of our feudal heritage of traditional meekness by the lowly or weak. And for that racial reason perhaps, even our qualified work force in the new businesses and enterprises have a propensity to be submissive to harsh managements, rather than to protest. The IT sector, especially in the SEZs, which are autonomous Republics within our soil, is an example. Deadlines in the production and targets in the marketing areas are enforced with such severity that our young workers tend to get burned out quicker, trying to meet the company’s demands on them. Unaware that such practices need to be identified as mere psychopathic bullying, and finding no precedence of such identification, our bright youngsters allow themselves to be exploited to any level by the new Capital.

We are told that in the ‘great’ West, employers can easily hire and fire, employees would not think of going-slow or striking work as they do in India; and that the West progresses because of such employee-devotion to work. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Recognition of the value of human resources in a works occurred in the West from early last century itself and their laws have been therefore, more ‘progressive’ and labour-friendly than ours in many ways. We still seem to think of a job as an act of charity by the employer to the worker.

Enacted laws in the UK, Ireland, Finland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and in many states in the USA against workplace violence on the mind or body of the employee by co-workers or bosses, is yet to find attention in Indian legislatures and courts of law. Our courts do speak of causing of mental agony as a civil injury; but the bully terminology is never seen used. Violence from a manager or colleagues need not be physical to be injurious. For a people that are nationally bullied by politicians through Bandhs, Hartals and the like in a routine manner, Bullying at the workplace might be insignificant.

The deadly effects of bullying on the mental and physical health of employees, and the consequent loss of days and useful performance to the employer need to be recognised in our country before things grow catastrophic; and bullying-induced suicides become common. Our lawmakers should lose no time in addressing the issue without waiting for the demand to rise from the labour unions, which themselves use a lot of bullying of their own membership in the name of solidarity and union discipline.

The recent Indiana high Court decision from America upholding the award of damages to the tune of $325000 to a bullied employee in a health care establishment [he had been shouted at by his Boss into mental distress] and the various similar judgments from Europe, ought to open the eyes of our courts of justice as to how the developed world views such matters. India’s being a developed country is itself only a few years away! Anti-bullying legislation is the need of the day as we move on to such glory.
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