Petition · past parliament

Make Workplace Bullying a Criminal Offence

Rejected 21 signatures

What the petition asks

Treat workplace bullying equal to protected characteristic, sex, race, religion and disability.
Employers hide behind the lack of evidence to support targeted behaviour linked to protected characteristics. This does not detract from their misconduct, intended or not and the impact on the recipient.
Bullying can have devastating impacts on the recipients health and well-being but there are no formal avenues to pursue through the Courts.

Employers have a duty of care to their employees but hide behind corrupt policies and conduct to protect themselves.

Internal grievance procedures are corrupt as they are weighted in favour of the employer to protect them.

Any form of discrimination or targeted behaviour should be protected by UK Law.

Bullying takes many forms of victimisation, harassmentand discrimination not just limited to the current protected characteristics listed above.

An employee should not be forced to resign to take an employer to court for constructive or unfair dismissal before the courts will address such misconduct.

Why it was rejected

It was not clear what the petition asked the UK Government or Parliament to do.

Petitions need to call on the UK Government or Parliament to take a specific action.

We understand you're concerned about workplace bullying but we're not sure exactly what you mean by treating it "equal to protected characteristics", so we're not sure exactly what you'd like the Government or Parliament to do.

You could start a new petition explaining clearly what you would like the Government or Parliament to do.

There's already a petition about this issue. It calls for new legislation, for example a Dignity at Work Bill. You might like to sign this petition if it calls for something you'd like to happen. You're more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.

New legislation needed to address 'Bullying in the workplace'

Timeline

11 Oct 2019 Petition opened for signatures
14 Oct 2019 Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 21
Status Rejected
Rejected 14 Oct 2019

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.