MBA responds to Workplace Bullying draft

Bullying in the workplace has been in the news as of late due to a new draft from Safe Work Australia.

The group has released the draft Code of Practice for Preventing and Responding to Workplace Bullying in an attempt to stem some of the issues that have cropped up in this area.

Master Builders Australia (MBA), has responded by acknowledging that Australian workplaces are no place for bullies and that there are key changes that can be made to improve the draft before it goes any further.

Chief executive officer of MBA Wilhelm Harnisch said that improvements could be made by expanding the draft to explicitly include all forms of bullying. He gives the example of the possibility of union officials bullying workers.

"It is crucial that no one is exempted or for a set of arrangements that would give such an exemption in practice," he said.

MBA also suggested that since bullying is a whole other issue to physical hazards, it should be treated completely differently.

"Master Builders are conscious that the knowledge base in this is continuously growing and due to the many different ways bullying can manifest itself we believe that the draft should be published as guidance material rather a one size fits all as a code of practice," Mr Harnisch concluded.