...Question: - “Bullying at work – a safety matter or an employment issue?” I. Introduction In the past, bullying has been reduced to an issue that occurs in the school yard amongst children. It had little scope in terms of being appreciated as a form of harm inflicted outside of these realms. However, the presence of this harmful treatment in the workplace cannot, and lately has not, been denied. This essay will discuss the variety of changes which have been seen over the last year in relation to workplace bullying legislation, as well as the changes which are still to come. This essay will draw upon the information provided in the original report made by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Employment (“the Committee”) in October 2012 titled Workplace Bullying – We just want it to stop, (“the Report”), which gave way for the changes that will occur from 1 January 2014 as a consequence of the recent passing of the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013 (“the Bill”). In reflecting upon these resources, this essay will show how bullying at work should be seen to be both a safety matter and an employment issue, and further this point by demonstrating that distinguishing it as one or the other is not necessary, nor is it desirable. II. The Confusion Around Bullying a. Prevalence One of the hardest tasks in the past when it came to legislative regulation of bullying was the inability to accurately measure the prevalence. Estimating the prevalence of bullying in Australia...
Words: 1949 - Pages: 8
...after a serious bully case of Brodie. A young woman, named Brodie Panlock, suicided after her colleagues’ long-term bullying. After this horrible tragedy, Victoria has set up an anti-bully act named after Brodie. From then on, serious bullying is defined as a crime and can be punishable by up to 10 years in jail. (Government of WA, 2013) 2.2 What does Brodie's Law cover? All forms of serious bully are considered as crimes under Brodie’s law. It involves physical bullying, psychological bullying, verbal bullying and cyber bullying. (Department of Justice Victoria, 2013) It normally includes behaviours such as threats and abuses and offensive words or behaviours. In addition, Brodie’s Law is not only against bully in work placement as Brodie has suffered, but also applies to other places where bullying can be possibly conducted, such as schools, and even on the internet, for instance bullying through email or on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. 2. What is workplace bullying? In section 55A (1) of the Occupational Health, Safety and Welfare Act 1986, it defines that 'Workplace bullying means any behaviour that is repeated, systematic and directed towards an employee or group of employees that a reasonable person, having regard to the circumstances, would expect to victimise, humiliate, undermine or threaten and which creates a risk to health and safety.' (Stop Bullying in SA, 2008) Frankly speaking, workplace bullying refers to any repeated...
Words: 670 - Pages: 3
...Bullying in the workplace Workplace bullying is any form of abuse; physical, verbal, psychological or social that is inflicted upon an individual by an employer, employee or group (Australian Human Rights Commission 2011). Methods of bullying include repetitive inappropriate comments (i.e. about one’s background, appearance, gender, culture, sexuality) sexual harassment, intimidation, exclusion, physical assault and threats. In particular instances such as stalking, assault and threats, bullying becomes a criminal offence. It is a common issue considered to be a silent epidemic (McAvoy and Murtagh 2003) as victims feel intimidated or hopeless thus preventing incident reporting. Statistics show that approximately one in three employees are bullied with the highest prevalence in the education department, healthcare industry and government positions (Fields-Gregor 2013). The workplace bullying institute observed that there is a greater occurrence amongst women being victims, estimating 58% of the workplace whilst it was approximated that 68% of males are found to be “bullies” (Farmer 2011). There are a variety of factors influencing workplace bullying. According to the interagency round table on workplace bullying these factors include power, self-esteem, difference, perceived threat, organizational culture, organisational factors and working arrangements. Characteristics of a workplace that maybe more susceptible to workplace bullying include industries with unstructured...
Words: 2306 - Pages: 10
...has the right to best possible human experience. Education has a duty to help and serve students overcome restrictions of history, provide an equal field for the growth of all students. Schools within Australia serve to provide a means for students with disabilities to overcome impairments and strive to their best possible future. Testing provides an adequate mechanism for measuring student’s results. Students that exhibit learning difficulties (LD), the result of disabilities, are more likely to be prone to test anxiety. A study into testing procedures in the Learning Disability Quarterly indicate ‘results of the present study suggest that LD children’s schools problems may in some cases reflect motivational factors involving fear of failure…’ (Bryan, Sonnefeld & Grabowski, 1983) The results show that ‘test anxiety is relatively strong in the learning disabled child and therefore should be addressed....’ Anxiety stems from a feeling that a person is inadequate to perform a task. It seems reasonable that some disabled children would suffer problems in testing due to conditions such as autism. Autism Spectrum Disorder classifies some autistic children has having anxiety, ADHD or depression and therefore it would be likely create problems in testing. Schools throughout Australia need to help students with learning difficulties to perform in the best possible environment to encourage the best means for the future of these students. Through the process of graduating students...
Words: 1631 - Pages: 7
...This is additionally problematic as students often frame gender or sexuality-based aggression as joking or not serious (like other forms of bullying are). They may also suggest that the victim deserved the violence. Each of these attitudes fosters a culture of non-reporting, further facilitating aggression of this kind. In my research, teachers suggested that the students who were at risk of gender-based or homophobic bullying had exceptional strengths that protected them from emotional or psychological damage from such incidents. Teachers often failed to recognise that homophobic language, or epithets like “slut” and “poof”, could be harmful to students. When moments of homophobia or gendered aggression occurred, they often dismissed it as not serious or as an inevitable product of adolescent relationships. Each of these positions is equally concerning as they allow bullying that relates to gender and sexuality to go unchecked in school environments, communicating to students that these actions have no institutional...
Words: 757 - Pages: 4
...Bullying in Schools Patrick J. Mullan Empire State College Bullying in Schools There are times in one’s life when something so deeply touches us that we have to stop what we are doing and either blink, smile or cry. For me, such a moment occurred on January 3, 2013 when I read in The Staten Island Advance that a 15 year old girl threw herself in front of a bus while carrying a suicide note in her pocket. This young lady had lived close to my home in Staten Island. Her name was Amanda Cummings, a high school student and a very attractive young woman. It was revealed that she was the victim of bullying both at school. She was also bullied on her cell phone and on the internet when she was at home. Apparently there was some romantic imbroglio over a boy that triggered a group of teenagers to target Amanda with relentless bullying. The young Romeo was 19 years old and apparently he was also involved with the ringleader of the bullies. The gang of bullies urged Amanda to kill herself on numerous occasions. The 19 year old male eventually broke up with Amanda, but the bullying did not cease. Faced with non-ending bullying and the loss of the boy, Amanda felt that she had no choice but to end her short life. In the days that followed Amanda’s death, students at her school posted the vilest messages on her Facebook page and continued their bullying even after she was dead. They expressed happiness over her decision to die and ridiculed her. Not everyone on Facebook was abominable...
Words: 1956 - Pages: 8
...work-place bullying takes place in an organization, it is because leadership and management of the organization allow it to happen. Do you agree? Introduction Bullying in the workplace has been defined as “harassing, offending, socially excluding someone or negatively affecting someone’s work tasks...repeatedly and regularly,” (Einarsen, 2003). By this we understand that bullying is a process that stems from a series of actions foregone. The forms of bullying which take place in an organisation are vast and range from verbal abuse to violence to sexual discrimination and harassment. While occurrences of bullying arise because management allow them to, literature suggests that there are various other factors which lead to it. The following sections attempt to explore these determinants. There is much evidence to suggest that workplace bullying is encouraged by management (O’Connell et al, 2007) and other evidence that suggests the opposite view (Einsaren, 2003). I will determine that one of the main responsibilities lies with management, but that other factors such as personalities, workplace ethic, policies, working culture, organizational behaviour and industrial nature have their own roles to play. Through my research I established that a knock-on effect exists within the concepts produced in the literature. We must firstly look at definitions of bullying and conflict to establish why it occurs from reviews of literature. Definition The ESRI describe bullying as “undermining...
Words: 2733 - Pages: 11
...been reported from involvement in online social networking, although recent studies indicate that internet communications may supplement traditional social behaviour rather than increase or decrease it. Increasingly, studies are indicating that social networking has a positive impact on social connectedness and wellbeing (Valkenburg & Peter, 2009; Ofcom, 2008). However, negatives are evident (Cross et al., 2009), with much media attention focused on the ‘dangers’ of online social networking such as bullying and inappropriate use of personal information. The 2010 National Psychology Week (NPW) research project sought to explore the social and psychological impact of online social networking in Australian adults with a focus on: 1. patterns of online social networking across age and level of sociability; 2. the effects of use of online social networking on face-to-face relationships and social connectedness; and 3. the negative impacts of online social networking. This article presents the findings of the research project, which generated a large amount of attention during this year’s National Psychology Week. A set of tips to promote positive online social networking were developed to accompany the media release about the NPW survey findings. The APS survey media release was picked up all around Australia and internationally online, and reached more than 2.3 million people in Australia alone through the print media. International publications online that featured...
Words: 4887 - Pages: 20
...www.australiaawards.gov.au www.australiaawards.gov.au Australia Awards Scholarships Policy Handbook February 2014 Australia Awards Scholarships Policy Handbook February 2014 You must read this Scholarships Policy Handbook carefully and fully understand its contents before signing the Contract with the Commonwealth of Australia. The handbook is provided to answer any questions you may have about your scholarship. Please also read the other information in your pre-departure pack and follow the instructions carefully. For further assistance, please contact DFAT at scholarships@dfat.gov.au This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyrights Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the Commonwealth. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Commonwealth Copyright Administration, Attorney-General’s Department, Robert Garran Offices, National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600 or posted at www.ag.gov.au ISBN 1 920861 77 7 Internet: www.dfat.gov.au Contents Australia Awards Scholarship Cycle vii GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND ACRONYMS 8 1. Australia Awards 11 1.1. Australia Awards Scholarships 12 1.2. How to use this scholarships policy handbook 12 1.3. Management responsibilities 14 2. Applying for an Australia Awards Scholarship 17 2.1. Eligibility criteria 17 2.2. Country and regional profiles 18 2.3. English language requirements...
Words: 40849 - Pages: 164
...Technology and Communities of Knowledge (Digital essay) Children of today are growing up surrounded by social networking through blogging, instant messaging, and short message services such as Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter enabling children in which they produce, share, and sometimes exchange ideas over the internet and in virtual communities, it has become a virtual aspect of their lives. These sites have a significant impact on the lives of children. Social networking is transforming the manner in which young people interact with their parents, peers, as well as how they make use of technology. Clearly there are positives with the use of social networking involving a great way to communicate and learn, however unfortunately negative effects on the youth also, a major risk associated with social networking is cyberbullying. Without children having a correct understanding of the inherent dangers that are associated with social networking sites children are at more risk every day. The effects of social networking are twofold.It is inevitable to ignore the fact that nowadays social networking plays an essential role in children’s lives with social networking and other related online communication activities comprised 64 per cent of young people’s total internet time (an average of 49 minutes per day on these activities, (AMCA, 2007). One may ask how spending all that time on the social media sites may have a positive impact on them. Well, social media helps the youth keep...
Words: 1462 - Pages: 6
...how growing up in a gay household affects children. Traditionalists have done their best to heighten those concerns, arguing that discriminatory laws serve the best interests of kids (Sanchez).” Traditionalists feel their laws are protecting the children in their best interest. The laws protect the children who could be adopted from bullying issues and discrimination. There is a risk that the child will get discriminated because of their home lives, or parents sexual orientation. Bullying and discrimination can affect the child unhealthily. If this can be prevented, then having the laws preventing a child being placed into a homosexual family home and having the child not be exposed to the unhealthy issues is in the favor of the children. However, there is a chance that everyone could be a victim of discrimination or bullying because of anything. The chance of bullying or discrimination for the child’s physical appearance or heritage is just as high the chance of the issue for the child’s parents. In many cases, bullying will affect the victim, but by stopping a child from having a loving family and home is not the way of stopping the issue of bullying. All humans have a right to a loving family and the amount of children who need homes is too large to ignore. Just because they have a chance of being bullied should not stop them from having loving homes. Same sex couples can provide for children just as much as opposite-sex couples, since scientific evidence says that same-sex parents...
Words: 1657 - Pages: 7
...The Problem A. Introduction Introduction School bullying is a pervasive problem found in elementary, middle, and high schools across the United States and around the world. It can take many direct and indirect forms, including physical violence, name-calling, taunting, teasing, and malicious rumor-spreading and social exclusion. Once thought of as a normal part of growing up, school bullying is now widely recognized as a serious problem that must be met with systematic preventative efforts. This article examines the nature, prevalence, and effects of school bullying. Bullying is a rising concern that plagues many of our schools. It is important for schools to address the issue of bullying because a vast amount of research has found that it can have a negative effect on students in terms of academic achievement, social and emotional development, and overall life adjustment. There are lots of reasons why students are bullying other students. Sometimes they think, “If they can do that, I can also do that too!” Students may also think that if the members of their group are bullies they need to be too. Sometimes students are afraid that if they were not bully, someone else will bully them. They also become to let out their hurt and anger. Bullying doesn’t involve only those doing the bullying and those being bullied. Bullying also involves and affects the entire school. The 3 main groups that are affected by bullying are the students who are bullied, the students who bully...
Words: 4326 - Pages: 18
...Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………3 Factors of Bullying………………………………………………...4 Strategies in Combating Bullying…………………………………7 Conclusion…………………………………………………………11 Reference…………………………………………………………..13 Abstract Bullying has occurred in our school for many years. There has been research done on bullying and the causes of why it happens. Bullying was not considered a big deal and was just an ordinary part of growing up until recently. With school shooting occurring and bullying being mentioned as a cause, it became more important to study why bullying has risen. We must study why there seem to be more bullies in the school system and what can be done to help protect the victims of bullies. When doing a quantitative research the aim is to determine the relationship between the independent variable and a dependent variable. Although an experimental research design is considered the strongest of all designs, a descriptive study would be less likely to have bias due to the number of participants. When surveying participants involved in bullying, statistics can show if intervention has helped with the bullying being done and victims of being bullied. Many questions are asked when it comes to bullying, such questions are: where is bullying most common? Who to tell when you are being bullied? What are the characteristics of bullies? What are the characteristics of victims of bullying? Does intervention help bullies as well as victims? But the main...
Words: 3443 - Pages: 14
...Workplace bullying and union involvement Introduction Bullying is all around us. We’ve seen it on the school playgrounds as children all the way through to the companies which we are employed. I’m sure at some point in our lives we ourselves have fallen victim to bullying or have even the person doing the bullying. Unfortunately, bullying is an increasing problem within the organization. To date, there are approximately 54 million people out there who have been victims to workplace bullying; of which, 45 percent suffer from various health problems due to stress and 40 percent were either fired because their work productivity diminished or they eventually quit because they couldn’t handle it anymore (Bennett-Alexander, 2012). Since bullying is such a common offense, it is often difficult to detect. This briefing will provide information about the problem, guidance on how to tackle it before it gets out of control, and what to include in an effective prevention policy and how to put it into action. What is bullying? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) classified workplace bullying not only as a form of harassment; they also gave bullying its own category under their definition of workplace violence (“Workplace violence”, n.d.). If not dealt with immediately, the bullying has the potential to lead into something more severe or fatal. Bullying is not just an employment problem; it’s an issue of power and feeling dominant. It can also raise...
Words: 2223 - Pages: 9
...Bullying Student’s Name Here XXXX University Introduction There are so many incidents on television where teenagers are being bullied via Facebook and other online sources. Almost every adolescent has access to the internet nowadays and most of them have a mobile phone. Therefor it is not surprising, that cyberbullying or bullying through these new communication technologies is increasing. In order to put cyberbullies to a stop it is necessary to know, who these teenagers are, what they do, and why they bully. This research will introduce briefly the suicde of Megan Meier and the foundation what is set into effect today to prevent children and teenagers from being victims like her. Another young victim of cyberbullying was a local teen, Viviana Aguirre, an El Paso girl who was being bullied and picked on and her tragedy caught media attention. She received messages via Facebook telling her to kill herself. This impressionable girl was tormented mentally and her self-esteem was seriously damaged. She ultimately became a victim of cyberbullying which lead Viviana to commit suicide. There must be an end put to this. The reason for this study is to identify the threats and the environment that exists in our local high schools providing a dangerous basis for committing cyberbullying. By conducting a survey we intend to find our weak spots and therefore create solutions that will prevent cyberbullying in the future. Just the mere researching into this negative phenomena serves...
Words: 4565 - Pages: 19
