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ARTICLE · 30 APRIL 2013

Bullying And Harassment, Or Not - Time To Step Back And Consider

McCarthy Tétrault
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Tragic cases and more mundane legislative changes have everyone talking about bullying and harassment.

CanadaEmployment and HR
Earl Phillips
Earl Phillips
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Tragic cases and more mundane legislative changes have everyone talking about bullying and harassment. For employers it is necessary to take a step back and consider what is not workplace bullying and harassment.

In BC in particular, with the advent of the new mental disorder provisions of the Workers Compensation Act, there has been a surge of uninformed discussion creating an expectation of many employees that anything they don't like in the workplace can be turned into a claim with WorkSafeBC.

This is largely the fault of Bill 14 (the legislation that changed section 5.1 of the Workers Compensation Act) being commonly spoken of as a law about bullying and harassment. It is true that section 5.1 refers to bullying and harassment, but only as one of many things that might be "a significant work-related stressor" that could support a claim for compensation.

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