Public and Commercial Services Union

Bullying can take many forms and, equally, has many possible definitions.

The definition that PCS favours defines bullying as:

“Persistent, offensive, abusive, intimidating, malicious or insulting behaviour, which amounts to an abuse of power or authority, which attempts to undermine an individual or group of employees and which may cause them to suffer stress.”

Harassment

Harassment is now legally defined in UK discrimination law and is a specific offence.

It is generally defined as where a person (the harasser) for a reason which relates to the protected status of the victim (i.e. their gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief or age), engages in unwanted conduct which has the purpose or effect of:

• violating the victim’s dignity
• creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for him/her.

There is usually a qualifying clause in the law which says that such conduct can only be found to be harassment if, having regard to all the circumstances, including in particular the perception of the victim, it should reasonably be considered as having that effect.

There is a further legal issue in relation to harassment, in the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, which makes it an offence for someone to pursue

“a course of conduct:

• which amounts to harassment of another
• which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.”

‘Harassment’ in this regard is not defined in the law, but it includes causing ‘alarm or distress’ and ‘a course of conduct’ is defined as conduct on ‘at least two occasions’.