Creating awareness about workplace bullying
NTUC’s Assistant Secretary-General Patrick Tay (left) and The Law Society’s Director of Pro Bono Services, Tanguy Lim. (Photo: Safhras Khan/Yahoo Singapore)
Twenty-two cases of workplace bullying have been reported to the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) since April 2014.
These cases were reported to the NTUC’s Professionals, Managers and Executives (PMEs) Centre, Patrick Tay, Assistant Secretary-General of the labour movement, revealed on Wednesday (30 March).
“The number is not big or alarming but we do not want it to explode. The key thing is we want to create awareness (about workplace bullying),” said Tay.
To move towards this goal, NTUC and The Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc) will be launching a booklet to highlight the issue and help workers understand the steps that they can take if they were to experience workplace bullying.
The booklet will be launched on Thursday (31 March) at the NTUC Centre in Marina Boulevard.
Speaking exclusively to Yahoo Singapore, Tay said that NTUC has been lobbying against workplace bullying since a case involving an intern, Calvin Chan Meng Hock, who was bullied at an IT company where he was working at, surfaced in 2013.
In that case, Lee Yew Nam, the boss at Encore eServices, had pleaded guilty to four charges of voluntarily causing hurt to Chan.
Media reports indicated that Lee’s case has been adjourned to a later date in April.
NTUC and LawSoc have been working together since January 2013 on various issues by organising legal clinics and talks for NTUC’s members.
Checklists to deal with workplace bullying
An online poll conducted earlier this month revealed that 80 per cent of 157 people surveyed said that workplace bullying is an issue in Singapore, Tay said.
Around 70 per cent of those who participated in the poll were not aware of their rights and remedies available to victims of workplace bullying, he added.
Tanguy Lim, Director of Pro Bono Services at LawSoc, said that the booklet comes with various checklists and scenarios.
Through such reference points, workers can bring up matters related to workplace bullying and seek help, Lim said.
