Employers ignore bullying unless it costs money

Your front-page news story ‘Union’s bully tactics fail’ (Personnel Today, 7 November) cannot go unanswered. The whole idea that a trade union should be portrayed as some sort of corporate bully attacking the Andrea Adams Trust is ridiculous.

As a union rep, the vast majority of the cases that land on my desk are about bullying. My colleagues and I deal with every one. We also see numerous articles about HR being more strategic and supporting the business needs of their organisation.

All very laudable, but let’s be blunt about this. Private sector companies need their HR departments because their directors are often so ignorant and incompetent about HR matters and legislation that they happily blunder into situations that could cost their organisations huge sums of money.

In the public sector they cannot get away with it because the unions are still there in some numbers.

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Despite the rhetoric from many of these private sector companies, there is no real progress against bullying. The most important thing is not staff but money, as this is what pays the shareholders.

Richard Essery
Union representative and HR professional