Attended by around 100 participants, the 1^st webinar of the project on third-party violence brought together members and representatives of trade unions and employer organizations, as well as researchers and specialists in the field of work harassment and discrimination. The online meeting, organized by EPSU together with CEMR, CESI and HOSPEEM, sought to clarify the definitions, applicable rules, and consequences of (third-party) violence at work.

Jane Pillinger, researcher of the project, presented the EU and international legal framework of the issues at stake and stressed the negative impact of workplace harassment on both workers and managers. Particularly, she talked about the impact on health and wellbeing and the security of the people involved, as well as the challenges in preventing third-party violence and the risk factors that increase the likelihood of such behaviors.

Agnes Parent-Thirion, Senior Programme Manager in the Working Life Unit at Eurofound, presented the latest available data from relevant Eurofound surveys and explained the link between job-quality and anti-social behavior.

After the presentations, the participants discussed on their personal experiences and the role of social partners at national level to tackle and fight third-party violence at work.

For CESI, this is a way of continuing the awareness-raising action on the topic started with its own project on third-party violence at work carried out between 2019 and 2020, in particular through the #NOVIOLENCEATWORK campaign based on a video and manifesto against third-party violence at work.

About the Project

“The role of social partners in preventing third-party violence and harassment at work” is a joint project of HOSPEEM, EPSU, CEMR, CESI (co-applicants) and ETF, ETNO, ETUCE, EUPAE, UITP (associated organizations), co-funded by the European Commission, for the years 2021 to 2023.

The project aims to assess the effectiveness at the national level of the EU multi-sectoral social partners’ Guidelines to tackle and prevent third-party violence and harassment related to work (2010), which CESI signed in 2018, as part of the TUNED delegation, for the central government administrations’ sector. It will identify areas for improvements and explore possibilities for reviewing the Guidelines’ content and nature considering recent legislative developments and the ILO Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment (2019). The final objective of the project is to become an awareness-raising tool on a gender-sensitive approach to third-party violence and harassment at the workplace.