New workplace protection against bullies to come within weeks, province says
Alberta’s labour minister is promising to introduce changes to provincial workplace safety rules within weeks to better protect employees against bullying and psychological harassment.
Matt Dykstra, spokesman for Alberta Labour Minister Christina Gray, said anti-bullying provisions will be introduced to the legislature this session to amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Experts say that means a harassment-related sick leave would become a reportable injury under provincial law.
They could no longer be swept under the table, said Pat Ferris, a partner in Calgary-based Janus Associates Psychological Services. All employers would be required to develop policies to investigate and punish harassment, and the law would clearly allow negligent employers to be taken to court.
“Alberta’s been really lagging internationally and in Canada,” said Ferris, who organizes conferences and lectures around the issue for the International Association on Workplace Bullying and Harassment.
Dykstra said the coming changes will be the first significant update to Alberta’s occupational health and safety legislation since 1976.
It doesn’t necessarily prevent the abuse, Ferris said, “but it gives the people who experience it a way to deal with it. (Now) often there’s no justice.”
The change to Alberta’s legislation follows MLA Craig Coolahan’s private member’s bill, introduced in November 2016. It tried to make harassment policies mandatory for Alberta businesses, and give victims of workplace bullying the ability to lodge a complaint with occupational health and safety officials.
The bill received unanimous support at first reading but died on the order paper when the session ended.
“We launched a review to ensure our legislation addresses serious issues such as workplace harassment and bullying,” Dykstra said in a statement Friday.
“In the coming weeks, Albertans will see strong action from our government to better protect workers and address incidents of harassment in the workplace.”
Gray was out of the country.