Ever gotten into a fight at work? Not just an argument, but a physical altercation?
Hopefully for most of us, the answer is negative. But for some, that is sadly not the case. There have been many cases of employees being fired for physical violence or uttering threats against co-workers and employers getting punished by courts and other decision-makers for allowing violence to happen in their workplaces. All Canadian jurisdictions have anti-violence provisions in their occupational health and safety legislation to combat this menace to the workplace, and now things are going global.
Last year, the federal government ratified International Labour Organization Convention 190 (C190), the Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 – an international document that requires the governments of countries that sign on to implement laws, policies, and collective bargaining agreements that completely ban violence and harassment at work, including measures to prevent it before it happens.
