Industrial action

Another cost to employers, and their customers, can be industrial action and there are several recent examples of workers voting to strike over bullying and harassment. In 2018 rail workers’ union RMT’s Rail Gourmet members in Edinburgh took several days of strike action in a dispute involving concerns including bullying and harassment and abuse of the disciplinary procedure. In December 2018, general union Unite withdrew planned strike action at Edinburgh Trams following agreement to overhaul the company’s sickness and capability policies. The union balloted members on strike action following complaints of a hostile management culture which, it was claimed, had resulted in members being bullied and harassed.

In August 2018, CWU deputy general secretary Terry Pullinger warned Royal Mail it must “walk the walk, not just talk the talk” on cultural change within the business, after a summer of growing discontent in delivery. He said a common theme had emerged in several local disputes including complaints of bullying and harassment by managers and unfair allocation of work and duties. A potential all-out strike at Swansea was narrowly averted when Royal Mail reinstated a CWU member who had been unfairly sacked. Other management actions and behaviours sparked angry protests in units as far apart as Plymouth, Sunderland and Grimsby during August 2018, Pullinger reported.