3 out of 10 people still bullied at work despite law revision

Nearly 30 percent of office workers said they are still bullied at work, despite a revised law banning workplace bullying that took effect 100 days ago, a survey showed, Tuesday.

According to the survey conducted by job recruitment website Incruit of 722 workers, 69.3 percent of the respondents said they have experienced workplace bullying, and 28.7 percent said the bullying continued after July 16 when the revised Labor Standard Act went into effect.

The most common type of bullying was the victim’s superior assigning excessive amounts of tasks, with 18.3 percent of the survey participants saying so. Over 16 percent said they experienced cursing and verbal abuse followed by being assigned work after office hours (15.9 percent).

Other types of workplace bullying included forcing workers to join evening get-togethers or company events (12.2 percent) and making subordinates handle their superiors’ personal duties.

The survey showed it was still difficult for people to raise the issue at work to fix the problems.

Only 15.3 percent of the respondents said they’ve reported the bullying to management, and 10.8 percent of them said the companies rejected their reports or did not respond. About 35 percent of those who did not report their experience said they did not do so because they knew it would not make any difference, while 27.5 percent said they had no evidence to back up their claims.