After the Deputy Prime Minister resigned last week, Waterfront Law's Head of Employment, Anthony Purvis, was approached for expert comment on workplace bullying by inews.co.uk.
When responding to the report of Adam Tolley KC, Dominic Raab suggested that the threshold for what constitutes bullying had been set too low. The law in this area has remained fairly static for several decades now, with the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 setting out a definition of harassment which is broadly the same as the one in the Ministerial Code considered by Mr. Tolley. Anthony's view was that cultural changes – including well-publicised exposés of workplace harassment and a greater focus on mental wellbeing at work – are why more people of all ages now feel able to and do speak up about inappropriate behaviour at work. Where a demanding boss may have been seen as a hard taskmaster and simply part of the job even ten or twenty years ago, Anthony said that it was now much more likely that workers would use the routes available to them to do something about it by raising a complaint internally or pursuing their legal rights in the Employment Tribunal.
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