1. Introduction
Workplace violence is recognized, by researchers and renowned national and international authors, a disease that affects the psyche of the group, that is, the soul of the nation. This expression could be a metaphor used as a literary effect to attract the attention of the authorities on the subject or to impress readers. Unfortunately it is much more than that.
It is a dramatic reality that wreaks havoc on the various activities and produces extraordinary expenses for the country. Economically speaking, it is a drag on development and a disgrace to society.
In our country, when we speak of moral violence, moral harassment, mobbing, or we refer by means of other expressions, we are speaking of an illegal act that causes diseases in people, in some cases leading to death.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) determined that female workers are affected in greater numbers than working men. This proportion ranges between 15 and 40% in the 23 countries studied.
For its part, the Supervisory Agency par excellence, of compliance with labor regulations, the Labor Directorate has detected a kind of impunity in actions of moral harassment and sexual harassment, material that is expressed in a text called: «Sexual harassment in the work: From impunity to action », in the series Aportes al Debate Laboral Nº 7 that was presented to the press in May 2000.
Studies by the Labor Directorate have revealed that two thirds of workers complain of psychological harassment.
Two years ago, the Labor Directorate detected that 69% of workers.
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Coinciding with these percentages, the Laborum Consultant, surveying around five thousand workers, determined that more than two thirds of Chilean workers are victims of moral violence, in any of its manifestations: moral harassment; sexual harassment; discrimination; fundamental rights abuses, which wreak havoc on the health of employees and workers.
The legislator was concerned to recognize part of this social trauma when enacting Law 20.005, which describes and sanctions sexual harassment. However, and recognizing this legislative effort, it is necessary to point out that the wording of the Law limits and inhibits action against the illicit, since there was great concern, more than for the victims of sexual harassment, for the alleged victims of the lawsuit, in the supposition that the bad faith of some could impute acts of harassment for revenge or for another unacceptable cause.
All of the above allows us to confirm that in Chile there is an underground activity of labor violence recognized by law in the indicated norm and in others such as articles 2, 160, 184 and others of the Labor Code.
2. Continuity of violence
Without going into the support of deterministic theories about human evil, we must also recognize that the mere enactment of the laws does not make men good, and as in this topic, violence at work, in addition to the generic one, continues to manifest itself day by day. in the different places of our territory. It has been recognized that workers do not know the elements and conditions of workplace violence. In some cases, in the peasantry, for example, where workplaces or tasks are located in remote and isolated places, it becomes part of the labor contract to accept insults, profanity and even insulting and insulting blows from the heads of work. Similarly, the Labor Office itself recognizes that there is an increase in claims for sexual harassment.
What has been examined obliges us to consider why, after a publicity at the national level, the enactment of the Sexual Harassment law, situations linked to this conduct still continue to occur and acts of harassment and attacks on workers do not stop. These attacks not only occur in the private area, but also in the public services sector. This is precisely where workers are most vulnerable to workplace violence, since the Administrative Statute is not a reliable element for the investigation, education, prevention and punishment of these crimes, since it entered the already famous "administrative summaries", many times led by friends or peers of the harasser,or by another harasser or by a person who is not prepared to carry out an investigation in which an attack on the fundamental rights of the victim is coming back, and at the same time a matter of delicate treatment, such as civil servant dignity or work of the harassed, and which is obviously carried out in the same sick and toxic environment, by tormented labor relations and in which the possible witnesses are full of anxiety, fear and subject to the designs of their own boss or superior, who is precisely the victimizer.for tormented labor relations and in which the possible witnesses are full of anxiety, fear and subject to the designs of their own boss or superior, who is precisely the victimizer.for tormented labor relations and in which the possible witnesses are full of anxiety, fear and subject to the designs of their own boss or superior, who is precisely the victimizer.
For those of us who have lived this experience in the investigation of specific situations and cases, we can responsibly affirm that in terms of protection against workplace violence, the private area has much more advantages than the public sector, especially due to the participation of regulatory agencies such as The Labor Directorate, which in some way or another, constitutes an element of protection of labor regulations, which in the public sector does not happen, and the victim only has the sinister procedure, alien to all norms of modern law: “The administrative summary”, which as a general rule confirms the decision of the “investigator” or ad hoc prosecutor.
3. Factors of incidence in the illicit
Undoubtedly, this author is unable to make a complete and total analysis of the factors that affect the manifestations of the crime: workplace violence, in any of its expressions. There is undoubtedly a personal nature of both the victimizer and the victim; management elements attributable to the company or service; social factors; normative and legal factors; psychosociological and cultural and, also, of application of the Law as we will see, that is, attributable to the procedural entanglement that disadvantages the victim.
to. Personal factors
In today's complex world, masterfully described by ………. In the tango “Cambalache”, it is possible that there are elements typical of the harasser that in the appreciation of the behavior of his workers, coworkers or subordinates, provoke sensations, wrong perceptions or erroneous regarding the victim's conduct. We cannot leave aside the claim of being this country one in which the behavior of its men is described as extremely macho.
It is a feeling or appreciation of the collective idiosyncrasy, but that in the field, sometimes more intimate, this serves as an argument to justify illegal actions in the workplace (or criminally according to its severity), of the harasser, and that before people of high cultural level are acceptable, not being so and bearing their status as clearly illegal according to the legal assets attacked: dignity, privacy, honor.
It must be clearly understood what is a personal factor of labor aggression, discrimination and gender moral harassment; of what is the natural action, of the behaviors, own personality traits that make the gender distinction and that is expressed in actions destined to the social encounter.
In the first, there is an aggressive, discriminatory element generally based on the job position or role or simply on the conception of superiority of the harasser based on sex. This is a distinctive characteristic element, since the relationship action is always accompanied by the recognition of value and subject to a response without any conditioning.
It is easy to understand that in our careless and uninformed world, a properly feminine attitude as a habitual behavior of a worker, can be appreciated by the harasser as a license to act. This situation has been pointed out as provocative on the part of the victim. In this statement, once again, gender is punished discriminatively, without realizing that this is precisely part of the problem.
b. Lack of HR management
It has been argued and recognized in recent years that the business culture has raised the value of HR, as these are essential and essential for the company. Gandhi, the leader of pacifism, said that not a single machine can move by itself. A no-brainer that is still not understood today. We add, not to think, to decide, to act on our own initiative. For this reason, and also because the Law orders it, the employer must keep his management levels regarding order, Hygiene and Safety, at an optimal level. The omission of this duty leads to disorder within the business walls and causes improper relaxation with effects on people, production and results.
Current management levels are not actively involved in the problem of occupational risk prevention, which is based precisely on the relations between managers and workers, and on the relations of workers with each other. They consider that the delivery of the corresponding Regulations is sufficient to fulfill the task demanded by a modern administration and comply with the legal mandate. This has been demonstrated and is demonstrated day by day, in the multiple occupational accidents, in the bad internal human relations and in the final results, which must be subtracted from the costs of illness, compensation, lawsuits and an increase in the additional contribution.
Managers, omnibulated by the big bottom numbers, don't notice profit spills in a year of corporate work.
This is transformed into a great chain of errors that infects the middle management and finally the workers. It is now an environment suitable for all forms of workplace violence: moral harassment, at any level; sexual harassment, ethnic, religious, political discrimination or any other form of derived and work related aggression.
The company is primarily responsible for workplace violence
c. Psycho-Sociological and Cultural
The prevention of occupational hazards, the care of workers and the respect for their fundamental rights, is actually an adequate response to modern doctrines on the essential rights of people and the practical guarantee of sound social health. On the contrary, the omission of these circumstances shows that society has failed to recognize man as the sole and original subject of societal purposes, of the principle that all human activity is aimed at satisfying the needs of the human being and that it is guarantee of the realization purpose.
In this aspect, or rather observed the problem from this angle, it becomes a psycho-sociological and cultural issue, since it is related, both with the formation of collective mental development in the appreciation of the human being, as a peer and entity subject to rights with guaranteed equality and with the social capacity to transmit information, skills and values of the same society.
The Law has the merit of giving political and legislative recognition and of raising the problem as a matter of social concern. The State, supra individual and legal entity, indicates to its organs that on this matter it is necessary to act with consequent conducts. This is clear in terms of a form of violence: Sexual Harassment. What happens to the other forms of violence? Obviously, although there is no specific rule, the state organs and their authorities only have the way to its sanction, based on the general regulations. This is the only corresponding cultural and social response.
d.The Law and the State organs
In a State of Law, such as the one that we claim to have, it is unpresentable for the organs of the state to allow the existence of extremely serious conditions for the people it claims to protect and protect. Hence, there is a clear responsibility at all levels of public management as regards them falls the constitutional obligation to ensure respect for the rights of people, in compliance with the mandate of the Fundamental Charter. That is why there are inspection bodies, which have a clear organic to comply with. Identity of functions in this regard, are all the Powers of the State, its authorities or agents, who consequently for the purposes of the common good and respect and promotion of fundamental rights,they must pay attention to any symptom of irregularity or ignorance of the agreements of the social contract.
Once the State organs have been overcome due to violence at work, it would be appropriate to install world-renowned institutions, such as the Ombudsman or Ombudsman, in order to deliver the promotion, surveillance and prevention of acts of violence at work (or anywhere that affects citizens), to a fair process where victims find a response from society to their problem of affecting their fundamental rights, attacked by workplace violence: physical and mental integrity; personal and family dignity; equality in the exercise of the Law; the right to decent work and others, already mentioned in other comments.
The lack of concern of the authorities, organs and agents of the State to protect essential rights and causes discomfort and distrust of the group in social entities, this because, as Don Santiago Ramón y Cajal, philosopher scrutinizing the human spirit, has already said: " Injustice was not so fearsome if it were more daring and diligent than justice.
This has a plain explanation: the first charges and the second pays. Therefore, great care must be taken so that the agents of the State demonstrate to the citizens greater efforts in the search for equity and respect for the rights of people. For the rest, it is one of the ends and objectives that justifies the action of the supra individual entity, to whom the citizen has delegated part of their rights through a social agreement, but never the essential and necessary ones for their full development as a being. human.
We must remember that sovereignty, that is, the powers of the State and its organs, resides in the "sovereign", who in a democratic republican, pluralist and unitary state, is the people, who temporarily delegate them to their legally instituted authorities.
4. Other incidence factors
4.1. Fear of reporting
The diligent analyst must take into account, among other factors of incidence, the circumstances that surround or involve the conditions in which it develops. Let's see: We are facing a completely deranged workplace, because the actions of the harasser psychically compromise third parties within the social group, call it service, work, department, section, who must decide internally whether or not to accept said actions..
The internal questioning provokes, to say the least, a decomposition of the work environment, since the externalization of said questioning produces friction in the group derived from the silence of some, the outrage of others, the support of the harasser, the least or ignorance or indifference to the facts, a very comfortable attitude, but anti-solidarity and very unethical. In this environment, the victim must also suffer from indecision and the fear of communicating, pointing out or denouncing before their next, first, and before their superiors, later. This is because the victim of violence at work does not understand the reasons for the situation, leaving her withdrawn and silent. It is the fear of reporting crimes for innumerable reasons: fear of job loss; fear of not being believed; fear of passivity and procedural difficulties;fear of discredit before their peers, etc.
4.2. The social commotion
It also has to do with the fear of reporting, but with other edges. The harasser can deny the harassment as such and point out that it is an accepted relationship and broken for personal reasons of the alleged offended. This generates in advance, at the mere possibility that this could happen a serious inhibition in the victim, especially if their honor can be tarnished in front of third parties such as the spouse or the groom. In addition, this situation of denunciation will undoubtedly lead to internal commotion, in the group and also in the circles associated with it, such as the company, the neighborhood, the service. The question that the victim usually thinks: Will it be worth claiming? Would you better bear the pressure? Should I resign for my peace of mind? Everything that leads us to express:When a person who is a victim of workplace violence dares to report, it is because their resistance is exhausted.
If, on the other hand, the social attitude were less tolerant and, likewise, the public agents ethically more willing to fulfill their functions, and the state organs were not stressed in front of the defense of the rights of the person, this anguish and pain of the victim it wouldn't be so terrible.
4.3. State complicity
The complicity of the State should not be taken as an action, it would be incomprehensible in a Rule of Law, even when it is known and there is evidence that the State and its organs have acted with political decision in torture and violence against people. However, a more subtle and less compromising way is that which is carried out "by default". In this regard, it is the duty of the State, in the first place, to provide educational tools in order to know, study the characteristics and nature of the crimes against the person, promote their prevention and express the sanctions, in order to inhibit the victimizers. For which there must be permanent and adequate information, which certainly has reached all levels.
The lack of knowledge of workers on this subject is notable. What matters for the recognition of workplace violence and so that they themselves do not stumble over it in front of their own peers.
5. Conceptual deficit of workplace violence
Ignorance or indifference allow society not to have a sense of gravity of the crime that we are commenting on. Historically, the wealthy and most informed sectors have had an intellectual submission to a perverse system of labor relations.
The businessman, manager or boss, acquires the role of feudal lord where only his will is constituted as Law. They are the remnants of a system descended from the primitive landowner businessman, where the worker was "the broken", "the ñato" or "the rooster ”, derogatory way of pointing to a farm worker. Not long ago, a political leader of a right-wing party appeared in the country's news, expressing himself in these terms, which brought to my memory the historical recognition of a reality that in Chile has left us stuck to the Middle Ages in matters of conduct of recognition of equality before the Law and before the exercise of it. In this conceptual system it is explained that the behaviors of workplace violence are not considered serious.
However, for experts and investigators, it is a kind of perfect crime, since it does not leave traces and can cause the death of the victim, as has happened in many cases. Something similar occurs in school violence manifested by the same causes for many years in Chile, even with the discrimination of the greatest Father of the Fatherland, Prócer O'Higgins, called in his time “el huacho Riquelme” or “el mulato Riquelme ”, in a contemptuous allusion to its Creole origin on the maternal side. But recently, flesh and blood has become in society as a result of the numerous suicides of young students. The same thing happens and has happened with the workers, so this matter requires a greater official and social commitment.
Violence and its consequences against the dignity of people, their physical and mental integrity, their right to the recognition of equals before the Law, to decent work and to their value as a human being, is a willful, intentional, unjust action in bad faith., illegitimate, abusive and that threatens order and social peace, which constitutes a crime, as soon as the result is foreseen and wanted by the harasser. While this conceptual extension is not consecrated positively and is drastically sanctioned, taking into account its aggravating factors, Chilean society will continue to suffer from fear of moral psychoterrorism and the victims, together with the citizens, will continue to be full of anxiety, fear and mistrust in the agents of the State, especially in charge of the administration of Justice.
6. Conclusion
The factors that influence workplace violence, as has been stated, are absolutely determinable and possible to manage, provided that there is political will of the State, its organs and agents and that society is compromised, especially in centers of economic power, companies and public services. It is in these places that labor violence in any of its forms is generated, causing serious damage to people, to society, to the State that must ensure the maintenance through the Social Security of the sick and disabled, and to the own companies that lose huge sums of money annually on days not worked, compensatory lawsuits, environments with occupational toxicity and decreased productivity.
From another point of view, the maintenance of stressful situations of a social nature produce disagreement against the system, and it is known that from time to time the pressure against workers provokes reactions whose beginning can be detected, as we do in this article, but never We will be able to know how it ends, causing great sufferings that always fall on those most in need.
The State and its authorities must be consistent with the constitutional mandate to provide the full development of the individual, the common good and social peace. What can never be achieved if violence, in all its forms, is accepted by the system of production relations.
