The 19th edition of DAWN's "Ban Bullying Day" and Flag Day will be celebrated on Friday 11th October, at the Piazza, from 9am to 2pm.

A statement from Dignity At Work Now follows below:

As in previous years, we will be available to chat with those who want to approach us to exchange ideas, experiences and information about the issue of Bullying in the workplace, our social responsibility, mission, trajectory and current resources available to help. Your attendance and participation will be very welcome as valuable support to our awareness campaign promoting dignity at our places work in our community. 

Since DAWN’s inception, in September 2005 we are committed to voluntarily provide free and confidential advice, knowledge, mediation and support to individuals and organizations. DAWN has had the honour to given introductory courses to employees at Customs, Royal Gibraltar Police, Borders and Coastguard, Care Agency among others in order to assist them to deal with the impact of Bullying at work and particularly to promote a more dignified and psychological healthier working condition, promoting mental health for employees at no cost to these Government departments or Private Businesses. In the particular case of bullying we aim to assist victims to try to reduce the psychosocial adverse effects, facilitating the development of resilience skills that can make the difference when they are left with no alternative but to deal with such negative behaviour and its distress, and to be able to find a reasonable way to stop the hostile aggression, protect their health in general and dignify their professional and personal life. 

Based on our work since 2005 by researching, raising awareness and mediating, we continue determined, (notwithstanding the pushback) advocating to continue encouraging and supporting Gibraltar public administration, relevant authorities, organizations and individuals to comply with the principle of social responsibility to the creation and successful implementation of specific policy and protocols to prevent bullying with its negative mental impact, in our places of work locally. We firmly believe that the introduction of an adequate, fair and reasonable Dignity At Work Policy, in keeping with the Schedule in the Employment (Bullying at work) Act 2014 in Gibraltar is an urgent matter since there are still employers not complying with this legal and moral obligation. This would be highly beneficial for employers and employees of the private and public sectors as primary prevention measure but also to ethically and objectively deal with ongoing increase in cases of bullying at work. 

The presence of legally compliant policies, standards, protocols and procedures to deal with bullying behaviour and its negative consequences would facilitate the employers, HR departments and employees the adequate and practical instruments to protect the human capital in organizations, to encourage positive and constructive working relationships, manage bullying complaints appropriately, employee concerns and conflicts properly with respect, equity and dignity in order to find reasonable solutions to secure the health and wellbeing at the workplace. 

DAWN continues encouraging individuals and the community at large to empower themselves by being aware and informed about their legal right to dignity at work, the presence of bullying culture in their working life and how hostile and detrimental it can be. As a society we need to know that, as in the rest of the world, in Gibraltar we still have in place some systems of work characterized by authoritarian leadership styles, detrimental communication styles and stressful working relationships and conditions that may put workers mental health at serious risk or death. In this respect we advice the sufferers to break the silence, obtain the adequate information and get professional help to better cope and protect their mental and physical integrity. The targets of bullying at work have the right and also the ethical duty to report and stop whatever unacceptable or unfair psychological ill-treatment by using the informal or formal channels of communication with the perpetrator, managers, employers, unions, medical/psychological advisors, relevant administration authorities or departments and support groups.

DAWN has managed to bring to public light the existence of a type of work and interpersonal cruelty that is subtle, and sometimes initially difficult to identify given its subjective and psychological nature. We have seen that the community has overcome a state of previous disinformation, which kept the collective negation about bullying at work. Now we see levels of public recognition and legitimisation about it as well as better understanding of the phenomena.

DAWN continues to see a very positive change of attitude from the public, for example the receptiveness of people to ask for information and to understand what bullying is, the appropriate use of  the word and definition of bullying in their conversations, the initiative to ask for advice and support if they suspect they are being bullied, the initiative to report workplace bullying behaviour to managers, human resources, unions, institutions, doctors, psychologist, and other authorities or to DAWN; the knowledge about the fact that bullying behaviour generates stress and suffering that cannot  be ignored and deserve being dealt with; the continued requests for help to DAWN, the open approach of people to share their own experiences dealing with bullying in their lives, the interest of the media to know about this issue, publishing our articles and supporting our awareness campaigns. 

DAWN has contributed to the Revised Bullying Policy for approximately 4 years within the Working Group integrated by three Unions, Gibraltar Police Federation, the Civil Service HR, as well as a law firm contracted by HMGOG. Around 2017 we all agreed that the current antibullying policy has Not been fit for purpose since the introduction of the Employment (bullying at work) Act 2014. This means that HMGOG and many other employers may be in breach of the said Act. After significant time and effort, in 2021 the finished Revised Policy was submitted to HMGOG for its implementation. Unfortunately, to date the current administration has not given it effect. The consequences are that employees and employers are still dealing with bullying cases without adequate resources.

According to WHO’s 2009 Conference: “Workplace health promotion is the combined effort of employers, employees and society to improve the health and well-being of people at work”.