increasing bullying in the workplace..."stop 'self-investigation' of users."

[Anchor]
Since the Labor Standards Act was revised in 2019 to prohibit bullying in the workplace, related reports have been increasing every year.

The number of cases in which users have been identified as perpetrators is also increasing, and even if they report harassment, there are many problems because the subject of the investigation is the user under the law.

This is reporter Lee Moon-seok.

[Reporter]
In May last year, an office worker in his 20s died on his own in Gangwon-do.

It was investigated that he was habitually verbally abused, threatened, and assaulted by his boss.

In order to prevent bullying in the workplace, the Labor Standards Act was revised in 2019 to prohibit it, but reports are increasing every year.

The number of workplace harassment cases, which was about 2,500 in the first year of implementation, has steadily increased, reaching about 11,000 last year.

Of the victims, 29 died, of which only 16 were recognized as industrial accident deaths.

As for the type of harassment, verbal abuse was the most common at 33%, followed by unfair personnel measures (14%) and gossip and bullying (11%).

In particular, 476 cases in the past three years have been fined for employers or their relative workers being identified as perpetrators.

However, as the legal subject of the investigation is specified as a "user", a "self-investigation" was conducted to investigate the user if the user was the perpetrator, raising the need for revision of the law.

[Lee Yong-woo / National Assembly Environment and Labor Committee: Even if the user directly harasses the worker, the user must conduct a self-investigation. Don't let the investigation be exploited as another means of bullying....]

In addition, some point out that the scope of workplace harassment punishment should be further expanded from the current "workplaces with five or more employees."More than 43,000 reports have been received so far since the enforcement of the

Act, and 4 out of 100 cases have not been saved because they are workplaces with fewer than 5 employees or specialized workers.

I'm YTN's Lee Munseok.

Edit
Image: Modify

design: this is