#NoViolenceAtWork - Third-party violence at Work: We can draw the line!

Third-party violence at Work: We can draw the line!

After nearly two years of intense work, with some delay due to the unforeseen pandemics, CESI mainly EU-funded project “Trade unions for zero tolerance towards third-party violence at work” comes now to a closure. After a truly European journey, which took us from The Hague (before the official start of the project), to Berlin, Madrid and Budapest, the final event, due to take place in Bordeaux, was eventually held online in light of the coronavirus pandemic social restrictions.

The message from CESI’s members is clear and unequivocal: “No more third-party violence at the workplace!”

Public sector workers are often the object of the disagreement and frustration citizens often feel towards their governments. Independent trade unions gather to condemn such acts, but also to demand action from governments and employers to prevent acts of violence at the workplace.

Public servants, like their peers in other professions, have the right to safe and healthy workplaces. To ensure this, CESI community remembers the importance of social dialogue and demands a policy of zero tolerance towards violence, an awareness of the responsibility of employers who have the duty to provide with specific training, the obligation of reporting of violent acts given the lack of data, and for workers to be provided with the proper tools to know how to deal with violent behaviours, be them verbal or physical, up to cyber harassment.

Independent Trade Unions speak one voice against violence in the #NOVIOLENCEATWORK campaign launching a video in thirteen different languages.

As CESI Secretary-General Klaus Heeger has repeatedly highlighted throughout the project, “it is about protecting those who protect and caring for those who care. An attack against a teacher, an attack against a policeman, an attack against a firefighter, an attack against a nurse or a doctor, are attacks against us as citizens, parents, pupils, patients. An attack against our members is an attack against us all!”

In this context, it is important to reinforce the idea that trade unions not only have an important role in helping to build a prevention culture but also, and maybe most importantly, in accompanying the victims of violence and letting them feel they are not alone.

Together, we can draw the line. Together we can end violence at work.

Contacts of CESI Member Organisations

More info and deliverables of the project

The project is co-funded by the European Union