by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

For the last few weeks, all of Quebec's legally employed workers have been able to show up to work with the knowledge of being protected by one of the world's only laws against psychological harassment. Under the law, now banned is "any vexatious behaviour in the form of repeated and hostile or unwanted conduct, verbal comments, actions or gestures that affect an employee's dignity or psychological or physical integrity and that results in a harmful work environment for the employee."

What those words mean in actual practice will be determined by what happens next.

The law was passed in 2002 by the former PQ government around the same time France and Belgium launched the world's first such legislation, which in the European parlance is known as "moral harassment." Although the Quebec law has been in effect since the start of June, the difference between what will be considered psychological harassment and legitimate management technique will only be known in upcoming months, as an expected 1,700 annual complaints of psychological harassment start to arrive and get processed by the Labour Standards Commission (Commission des normes du travail).

Fuzzy future

Veteran UQÀM prof and labour expert Michel Grant says that initial decisions, which will be made by the Labour Relations Commission (Commission des rélations de travail), could forever dictate what an employee is expected to endure at work. The legitimacy of a boss yelling at an employee, for example, will undoubtedly be decided. "If screaming intimidates, or the employer abuses it, it could eventually be considered harassment, but we don't have any jurisprudence. So for the first year or so there'll be a period of fuzziness. So for two or three years, the situation could be pretty rock and roll," says Grant. "It's all in the hands of the judiciary right now.

"Eventually the decisions will allow us to define psychological harassment, but there are many dimensions of harassment. What's harassment for a particularly sensitive person isn't harassment for another. It's often in the eye of the beholder."

So, for example, can a boss lean back and scare the bejesus out of an employee with a burst of sonic terror? "It's not a practical method of managing, in my view," says Francine Martel-Vaillancourt, chair and director general of the Labour Standards Commission. "But just because we have this new law doesn't mean that there's no more right to manage. If an employee doesn't do his job and gets warned and still doesn't do what's expected, it's sure that the employer has the right to disciplinary action."

Psychological harassment - as Martel-Vaillancourt told thousands of Quebec employers in a recent barnstorming information campaign - is a pattern of behaviour. "Each case is unique and involves an entire combination of components of acts or words. One example is in isolating a person or making him do demeaning tasks well beneath his abilities. Or it can be rumour mongering, or inviting everybody to a meeting except one employee, or refusing to allow her to talk at a meeting or mocking her beliefs. We can see many manifestations of psychological harassment within a single case."

Levels of acceptability

When the Commission receives a complaint, they ask that the employer resolve it. If the employer fails to resolve the complaint to the satisfaction of the worker, the Labour Standards Commission sends the case to the Labour Relations Commission and provides free legal representation for the plaintiff. The process should ideally be resolved within 60 days. Between June 1 and last week, the Commission received 265 complaints, many of which were tossed out because they related to events prior to June 1 or were filed by unionized employees, who must first go through a union grievance procedure. Complainants must also file with the Commission within 90 days of the last alleged incidence of harassment. According to European studies, one in 10 workers considers himself a victim of psychological harassment, says Martel-Vaillancourt.

The Conseil du patronat du Québec has worked with the government in the implementation of the law and is planning a general seminar to study the first few months of legal judgements, according to the CPQ's Anne Lebel. She says loud-yelling bosses might be considered "acceptable on a construction site," but concedes that "if there was one worker who was deeply religious and they swore around him intentionally, that would be psychological harassment."

Lebel says that bosses aren't the only possible culprits. "In the European experience, complaints frequently stem from employees ganging up against another employee."