Workplace Bullying Chronic in Macedonia

Employers and the government deny there's a problem, but weak unions and a lack of worker protections leave many Macedonians vulnerable to abuse on the job

By Ljubica Grozdanovska Dimishkovska

For five years, Marina K. has worked as an accountant for a sanitation company in a town in southern Macedonia. At 27, she is the sole earner in her family of five, so to supplement her income, early this year she also began working as a part-time agent for one of the country's biggest insurance companies. Soon afterward, her original employer began to harass her.

"I began working as a part-time insurance agent because it's a different kind of work than my [accounting job] and I thought that there would be no conflict. But, obviously, according to my boss, there is," said Marina, who was later transferred to another department within the institution where, she says, she "does nothing" and lives in constant fear of being fired.

"I go to work every day expecting to be productive, but instead of that I'm more and more disappointed. I'm afraid of my boss because he could fire me whenever he wants. But he wants to play mental games with me."

Until July, when a Skopje-based group organized a conference about "mobbing"—bullying in the workplace through psychological, mental or sexual, harassment by colleagues and employers—Marina wasn't aware that her predicament had a name, let alone how widespread it was.

Marina, who refused to give her full name for fear of retaliation at work, says she has faith in neither the official workers union in Skopje nor the courts or other human rights institutions. The public institution where works doesn't have its own union—another reason why she feels she can't fight within the system to change her situation.

In Macedonia, unions are disorganized and weak, there are few mechanisms for the protection of workers, and, unlike in many European countries, there is no legislation specifically addressing the problem of mobbing.

According to a survey conducted by a local organization and released in July, out of 1,100 employees (572 women and 528 men) working in Skopje, some 77 percent have experienced mental or sexual harassment in the workplace. The research was conducted from March 2008 through April 2009 among workers ages 20 to 60 employed in schools, public and local administration, private companies, unions, and nonprofit organizations.

"I became interested in this issue because I was myself a victim of harassment at work," said Lidija Kekenovska Pavik, who coordinated survey. "Our research is the first of its kind in Macedonia. … [O]ur job in the near future will be working to raise public awareness about mobbing, educating all workers in Macedonia about their rights and their working conditions, [and] helping to prepare a law against mobbing for the protection of the workers."

According to the research, it was most often competition at work that led to harassment. Of the respondents, 411 said they were abused by a woman and 689 by a man, with overlap between the two categories. Eight hundred and forty-three people said they had been victims of mobbing and felt sick, afraid, or humiliated due to the harassment; 428 said they were thinking about quitting their jobs because of harassment; 236 said they planned to take sick leave; 218 said they are losing the ability of focus on their work; and 121 had refused to go back to work.

Kekenovska Pavik says most Macedonians have experienced or heard about some form of harassment at work but few have reacted through official channels, mainly out of fear of losing their jobs. While her organization has a help line for victims, she says a full-fledged center where people can freely go and talk with experts on this issue is needed.

"We must work first with the employees and after that with the employers because many of them don't know—or they don't want to know—what's going on with their workers," Kekenovska Pavik said. "Workers in these cases must learn how to speak openly, how to develop their communication skills so that they can confront employers or colleagues who are practicing mental harassment at work."

Kekenovska Pavik says unions, labor experts, and government ministries must work together on the problem. "In Croatia and Greece there's a law; in Serbia, the law is going through parliament. Protection of the workers' rights and protecting them from discrimination and mobbing are essential things to be integrated into our legal system if we, as a country, want to be a part of European family," Kekenovska Pavik said.

Business Exchange

Track and share business topics across the Web.