It costs large sums not only to employees who are forced to change jobs, but also to employers who have invested time and effort in their staff, it costs large sums to the whole economy also.
This became clear at the conference on "Zero Tolerance to Harassment and Violence in the Workplace", which was held this Tuesday at the House of Europe thanks to the Center for Sustainable Communities Development and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Bulgaria.
The forum was opened by representatives of the organizers and Borislav Sandov, Minister of Environment and Water. He expressed his strong position against harassment in the workplace, as well as against domestic violence, and stressed the urgent need for such events so that these topics could increasingly enter into public dialogue.
The event continued with an explanation of the various forms of violence or harassment in the workplace. One of the highlights of Diana Georgieva from the Center for Sustainable Communities Development was cyberbullying and the transfer of sexual harassment online in the context of Covid-19. Assoc. Prof. Andrey Alexandrov from the Institute of State and Law at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences presented the institutional and legislative framework regarding the problem. According to him, updates are needed in the Law on Protection against Discrimination so that it is as effective as possible and protects victims effectively.
International law also protects the right to work without harassment and violence through Convention 190 of the International Labor Organization. The main initiator for the ratification of the Convention in our country and a panelist in the forum was Ekaterina Yordanova - President of the Union of Transport Trade Unions in Bulgaria. During the event, she shared the long road to lobbying for this important international document, which was submitted to MPs for discussion at the end of last month.
At the end of the first panel, Dr. Antonina Kardasheva from the Foundation for the Development of Emotional Intelligence spoke about the emotional damage that can cause violence in the workplace and shared her experience in working with people victims of this type of harassment. According to her, a large part of them remain emotionally traumatized for life, which worsens not only their quality of work, even with the next employer, but very often the quality of life in general.
And to what extent does the business in our country deal with sexual harassment at work?
A total of 48% of managers and only 26.4% of employees answered "completely" to the question of whether you think that sufficient measures have been taken to prevent and respond to sexual harassment in your organization, according to a survey of employees and employers within the project "TEAMWORK" (https://www.teamworkproject.eu/bg/home-2/ )
The data were presented by the Deputy Director of the Institute for Social and Trade Union Research of CITUB Violeta Ivanova, who stressed that in the absence of prevention, the factors for sexual harassment will continue to spread. Therefore, the project developed guidelines for action in such cases as well as an online platform where each company can test the extent to which its employees are protected from this type of harassment in the workplace. Stanimira Hadjimitova, director of the Center for Sustainable Communities Development added more details about the project. More about it can be found also here: https://cscd-bg.org/en/projects/teamwork-project
Employees in the agricultural sector are particularly at risk of sexual and other harassment and violence in the workplace. This was emphasized by Valentina Vasilyonova, chairwoman of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions in Agriculture. The sector has the most dangerous working conditions and seasonal workers are particularly sensitive here, as Bulgaria is a donor country of about 80,000 seasonal workers a year who seek a living in Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, UK and others. It turns out that when arriving in the host countries, a large part of these people encounter unimaginable working conditions and turn to trade unions for support. There are also good practices here - one of them is the information campaigns that explain the rights and obligations of travelers. The BRIGHT project, which is being implemented jointly by CSCD and FITUA was also extremely useful. Information about it you can find here: https://cscd-bg.org/en/projects/project-bright
At the end of the forum the floor was taken by Kaufland Bulgaria. Galya Ivanova and Mariana Kartalska told about their position to trusted persons in the company. They have been dealing with the problems of their colleagues for years and working on cases of violence and harassment, protecting the interests of employees and ensuring anonymity when necessary. Every year, the company develops various policies and initiatives for its employees to ensure their maximum mental and physical health and to ensure the best working conditions.
The event ended with a lively discussion and many questions related to specific cases and ideas for shared future initiatives to raise awareness of workers in different sectors, as well as their sensitivity to alert themselves in such cases, as currently complaints to the Commission for Protection against Discrimination are extremely few. According to the experts who took part in the conference, the reason is not the lack of harassment in the workplace, but the fear of the victims not to lose their jobs.