“Bullied” Liverpool council staff go on sick
Dec 1 2008 by Ben Schofield, Liverpool Daily Post
Municipal Buildings on Dale Street, Liverpool _220
LIVERPOOL’S council staff are too stressed to work and are signing off sick at a rate of more than one every day, new figures reveal.
Bullying at Liverpool City Council is also an “everyday occurrence” which is “endemic” throughout its hierarchy, staff representatives have claimed.
In the past four years, staff have been off with stress-related illnesses 2,602 times.
There were also 45 formal complaints of bullying made against managers and colleagues between August, 2004, and July, 2008.
Unison, representing 4,000 Town Hall staff, says that figure conceals a larger number of bullying victims who suffer in silence and hold back from complaining.
But a council spokesman said a range of help and support is offered to staff in managing stress, and any bullying complaint is taken “extremely seriously and thoroughly investigated”.
Angela Blundell, secretary of Unison’s joint trade union committee, criticised how the council dealt with bullying, and said managers were not adequately trained in how to field complaints. Last night, she said: “I would have thought a higher figure on that. It’s an everyday occurrence that we get complaints – it’s a problem within the city council, bullying and harassment; we get calls repeatedly.
“We have formal cases and in most instances the council never find that bullying’s happened. I can’t recall one where they have found in favour of the person who’s been complaining. The usual thing for the council to do is to move them away from the area where they have been, then label them as troublemakers.”
Employees took the council to industrial tribunals 34 times over the four-year period. It won 14, with 20 settled or withdrawn.
Six of the cases were constructive dismissal suits. The council won two of these and settled four.
Asked who was mostly accused of bullying, Mrs Blundell added: “It ranges through senior executives down to ex-manual grade. It is endemic throughout the council.
