WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT
Swearing at work so last century
SWEARING may soon be a thing of the past at work, as a workplace safety expert says a change in a government bullying guideline will force employers to clean up the cussing.
But a building industry boss warns the ‘‘PC brigade’’ is already having a detrimental effect on his industry.
Allan Halse, director of Culturesafe New Zealand, said the government move could make it easier for bosses to be pinged by workers who were offended by swearing.
The days of cursing like a sailor were ‘‘last-century’’ and people shouldn’t expect to be able to use offensive language around others, he said.
Just this week a Waikato mayor conceded he used the term w....r and a builder was ordered to pay up in an employment case after he used the f-word in a text to a worker he had called a ‘‘baby’’.
Halse said the change in workplace bullying guidelines last year removed the requirement for employees to prove intent when it came to bullying behaviour.
This meant that workplaces with bad language were more vulnerable to a bullying complaint from an employee, even if the language wasn’t directed at an individual.
‘‘If someone’s on the receiving end of those [words] and it is repeated and has a detrimental impact, that’s how you get to the bullying threshold, even suggestive glances or dirty looks. You can offend people without intending to.
‘‘The [male-dominated jobs] are where you have isolated groups of people that are living in the last century, they’ve never reached civilisation. They’re still behaving in a way that is foreign to sophisticated society.’’
Halse said firefighting and ambulance crewing had developed cultures that often included salty language. ‘‘A lot of the staunch blokes think it’s OK for people to be rough and swear and do all that stuff, and it’s not.’’
He was no puritan and grew up in the country, where his choice of vocabulary would offend the unoffendable. But ‘‘it’s not until you actually get in among society that you realise there are behaviours you have to comply with’’.
Waikato District Fire Commander Roy Breeze said, like any other organisation, they had their challenges.
‘‘Yes, you get a unique culture [within the Fire Service] because people are literally living together, particularly in a stressful environment like emergency services, but that doesn’t give anyone reason to offend,’’ he said.
‘‘We do not tolerate any bullying or words that can create offence within the group or external to the group.’’
However,Waikato Registered Master Builders Association president Steve Ross said the policy set by the ‘‘PC brigade’’ was already harming the industry.
‘‘As far as PC discussions go, we are going a bit over the top, where these young guys seem to be wrapped up in cotton wool.
‘‘They want to be paid $50 an hour when they’ve just left school and have no skills, but they think the world owes them something.’’
Ross said swearing was commonplace among trades, but generally workers were encouraged not to swear around customers.
Employment law specialist Andrea Twaddle, said the workplace environment and its culture and customs were considered when looking into any allegations of inappropriate language.
A lot of the staunch blokes think it’s OK for people to be rough and swear.
Allan Halse, workplace bullying expert