Dave Levy examines the Deputy Prime Minister’s resignation last month and its wider implications for fighting workplace bullying

Dominic Raab has had to resign from the government, due to an investigation into allegations of bullying having found that there was sufficient evidence to justify an adverse finding.

Sorry about the complexity of that sentence, but he has not been found guilty, only that he has a case to answer. There was some question as to whether the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak would fire him or not. Raab saved him the trouble by resigning in an extraordinary, apology-free self-justifying resignation letter.

This is one of the most publicly visible stories showing the endemic occurrence of bullying within the workplace and the consensus of tolerance of such behaviour. Raab’s failure to apologise is symptomatic of an attitude pervasive within British management. He thinks he did nothing wrong and there will be many managers who agree. There is no excuse for this: the trade union movement and the law have developed definitions of bullying.

Bullying includes: offensive, intimidating, malicious, or insulting behaviour; abuse of authority which violates the dignity of an individual or a group of people; creating a hostile environment against an individual; and the undermining, humiliation or injury of an individual.

Tribunals do not consider bullying to be a crime although some lawyers suggest that legal remedy can be sought through the Crown Court system; neither of these offer timely relief which is why the collusion by managements in supporting senior officers against allegations of bullying is so damaging.

Raab’s refusal to apologise and to blame the victims is just one expression of this widespread view that managers have to be tough. The Tories have already let Priti Patel off on the grounds she didn’t mean it. Raab is seeking to extend arguments in defence of bullying charges to arguing that it wasn’t bullying; it was merely effective management communication. I am also curious about the argument that one can be  accused of six acts and found only to have misbehaved twice, thus a little bullying is permitted.

The definition of whether an act is one of bullying must sit in the reasonable judgement of the victim and certified sick notes for work-related stress must become the gold-plated evidence for this.

It’s all too easy to forget the genuine hurt and harm that bullying can cause and we too often forget that it’s designed to be hurtful. As human beings we should have sympathy with the victims and be robust in condemning and punishing the perpetrators.

Another legal route might be to sue the employer for a breach of health and safety, although again, evidence of causality is difficult to obtain. I am unclear of the legal precedents for this pursuit, but I am advised, second-hand, that’s at least one trade union law firm has a very low assessment of the likelihood of winning. The best defence against known bullies with management air-cover, is a strong union, with a recognition agreement that threatens industrial action.

It is not uncommon for organisations that value their brand to appoint independent lawyers to establish the facts of the case of bullying or harassment, particularly in cases where the alleged bully is a senior officer of the organisation. One of the reasons this practice is quite common, is that it is unusual for bullies to do their bullying in public, and thus evidence of the acts of bullying is often hard to find. To be honest, I am surprised that the investigating lawyer actually found there was a case to answer: in my experience, this is highly unusual.

There have been two parliamentary responses. The first is that the Liberal Democrats have rightly referred these events to the Parliamentary Commissioner on Standards, although it would have come better from another political party. The second, from some Tories, is that they rewrite the rules governing ministers’ behaviour towards civil servants, in short, legalise the crime. Shamefully, no-one, it seems, is arguing that the laws designed to protect workers should be strengthened.

The referral to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner should be supported. It is highly unusual for acts of bullying to be held to account. As a trade union rep who has on numerous occasions helped people make grievances against bullies, I can assure you my success rate in these cases is not high. British workplaces need a change in management culture and a change in the law. The Bribery Act makes it an offence for a company to fail to stop ‘improper behaviour’, so perhaps we should pass such a law for bullying and place a criminal liability on managements that collude, cover-up or fail to defend victims.

As for the Tories’ attempt to rewrite the ministers’ codes of behaviour, this article in the Guardian  is very good. Although not mentioning Priti Patel, it does mention refer to Jacob Rees Mogg’s bullying of staff to return to the office after the pandemic.

You might have thought that the Tories would have learned that changing the rules after the event rarely has a successful outcome – just look at Boris Johnson and Owen Patterson. Sadly, the Guardian article uses language that locates the dysfunction in the context of government. Senior civil servants are not the only victims of bullying.

The FDA is the Association of First Division Civil Servants, a trade union for senior and middle management civil servants, and while its intervention has been important and useful, allowing the FDA to lead on this makes it easy to turn the problem into a government versus civil service issue.  It is not: PCS, even though busy on pay, needs to make this an issue for all workers.

My union, the GMB , has debated this at several Congresses over the last five years. I shall be writing to Officers asking them to support the referral to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner and to support a rewriting of the law so that everyone can be protected from management bullying and that managers learn that bullying has bad consequences.

Dave Levy is a member of Lewisham Deptford Labour Party and Branch President of the GMB’s Central London General Branch where he also undertakes accompanying  rep work. He blogs here.

Image: Source: https://members-api.parliament.uk/api/Members/4007/Portrait?cropType=ThreeFour. Author: Richard Townshend, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.