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Staff say ACC a bully
19 April 2004
By CUSHLA MANAGH
ACC, the crown agency responsible for preventing workplace injuries, has been investigated for bullying and overworking staff.
Labour Department watchdog OSH confirmed it had received complaints of stress, work overload and bullying within ACC. It said it had investigated the complaints and was still monitoring the situation. As a result ACC had introduced a system to manage workplace stress.
But ACC said complaints had not been substantiated, and it had confidence in its systems to manage stress.
However, staff told The Dominion Post they knew of colleagues who had nervous breakdowns as a result of working in a stressful and persecuting environment.
A former case worker said she was still on anti-depressants months after leaving ACC. She knew of a colleague who had been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, a condition usually associated with war veterans or the survivors of very abusive situations.
Other allegations include:
* A staff member, labelled a trouble-maker after challenging workloads, was required to write a log every 15 minutes of what she was working on, forced to have 10 performance reviews in three months and work in her own time to complete the workload expected of her.
* Death threats against ACC case managers from angry claimants not being taken seriously. In one case, a former case manager said she was forced to continue working with a client who had threatened to harm her.
* Staff concerns about increasing workloads being brushed aside.
* Staff who question their own ability to cope being asked to undergo psychiatric assessments.
* Volatile relationships between staff and management, characterised by mistrust, a culture of blame, favouritism, and crisis management.
Former and current staff said problems were especially rife in ACC's sensitive claims unit, which has 36 staff and has handled more than 20,000 sex abuse claims since January 2003.
Staff had quit because they could not stand working there any longer. Some had been made to sign confidentiality agreements.
One woman said she used to have panic attacks and suffer from chest pains and nausea at the thought of going to work. She regularly saw colleagues break down in tears after being harassed by managers.
Information from ACC shows that nearly a third of sensitive claims unit staff have resigned, been sacked, seconded or transferred out of the unit since the start of last year. Ten staff, including five from the sensitive claims unit, had received payouts since the start of 2003 totalling $139,249 with the biggest payout $36,052.
The sensitive claims unit hit the headlines last year when five staff were sacked for circulating an e-mail cartoon of a whale penis.
Last year ACC Minister Ruth Dyson said there had been no cases of work-related stress reported within ACC in the past five years.
National Union of Public Employees organiser Janice Gemmell said she was concerned at the number of staff who had left the sensitive claims unit under "difficult circumstances".
In June last year she wrote to OSH requesting an urgent investigation into bullying and workload issues, as she feared for the mental wellbeing of some staff in the sensitive claims unit. "It is our view that the management culture in this organisation uses both bullying and standover tactics, making the work environment unsafe."
OSH general manager Bob Hill said it had received three formal complaints about stress, work overload and bullying in the sensitive claims unit. It investigated and as a result ACC had introduced a system to manage workplace stress.
ACC spokesman Fraser Folster said ACC had systems in place for managing stress and provided professional supervision for case managers distressed by claimants' experiences. It had hired extra staff and acted to reduce the workload within the sensitive claims unit.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/dominionpost/...98a6000,00.html
