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Bullying and Harassment in Australia

Decent Essays

Organisations within Australia have a legal obligation to prevent bullying and harassment. The Fair Work Commission, Australia’s national workplace relations tribunal, states that “bullying at work” occurs when “a person or a group of people repeatedly behaves unreasonably towards a worker or a group of workers at work and the behaviour creates a risk to health and safety.”(Fair Work Commission 2014).The legislation in Australia, implemented from the 1st of January 2014, dictates that a worker in a constitutionally covered business who reasonably believes that he or she has been bullied at work can apply to the Fair Work Commission for an order to stop the bullying .If the Fair Work Commission finds that the worker has been bullied and there is a risk that it will continue, it can order the bullying to stop. Bullying behaviour may also be discrimination based on age, disability, sex, pregnancy, race, disability, sexual orientation, religious belief or activity or other attribute protected by the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Fair Work Commission 2014).
According to Metz (2011), women are being deprived of opportunities and being squeezed out of organisations due to preconceptions about their dedication to a long term role, based on outdated gender stereotypes. In general, women experience higher rates of harassment at work, compared to men(McLaughlin, Uggen and Blackstone 2012).
Bullying and harassment within the workplace can be attributed to a myriad of factors. The work

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