Law needed to stop workplace bullies

CultureSafe founder Allan Halse (centre) with US academics against bullying Dr Ruth Names and Dr Gary Names.

Hamilton organisation CultureSafe NZ is now affiliated with the Workplace Bullying Institute of America, in recognition of strong similarities between the prevalence of social mistreatment of employees in both countries.

Allan Halse, director of CultureSafe, travelled to San Francisco for a three-day course in managing workplace bullying.

He was invited by American academics Drs Gary and Ruth Namie, directors of the Workplace Bullying Institute. The pair have compiled a huge amount of research on the topic during 20 years of study.

"From my observations, New Zealand's inability to effectively identify and manage workplace bullying is very similar to the situation in America and it seems we align more to America than England in terms of culture," said Halse.

"We don't have good legislation to deal with workplace bullying cases, and what neither country has are government agencies that will intervene. We don't have them."

Halse formed CultureSafe to make up for the absence in New Zealand of not-for-profit groups that could provide counselling or advocacy services, either for free or at a discount, to workers experiencing bullying.

He said the media profile of the American professors will help the cause against workplace bullying.

"I guess the biggie for me is these guys are massive. Dr Gary Namie said he's been interviewed in the media more than 1200 times. He's the go-to person on workplace bullying, and now he's making money from pretty much exclusively acting as a workplace bullying expert for lawyers," said Halse.

"I believe we're going to be seeing a lot of employment claims in six figures and above within the next year or two. It was signalled last year by New Zealand employment lawyer Mai Chen. She said that mental health in New Zealand was the new frontier for health and safety in the workplace."

CultureSafe is effectively leading the charge in New Zealand. They currently have workers' cases before the Employment Relations Authority that it hopes will set a new trend in workplace relations.

Halse does not believe that employers, unions and employment lawyers understand the connections that foster social mistreatment of workers.

"We in New Zealand are so immature in our understanding," he said.

"Workplace bullying is similar to domestic violence. New Zealand only realised in recent times the extent of domestic violence. With workplace bullying, we haven't even begun to think about it."

There are plans to bring Drs Gary and Ruth Namie to Wellington in the lead-up to this year's general election to state what workplace bullying does scientifically to people. Halse said he foresaw CultureSafe would start a branch in Wellington soon.

"It's a homegrown Hamilton industry, and we've got no doubt that we're clever enough to make it work."