Employers must not discriminate. Workers are protected by law (Equality Act 2010).

If you witness or experience discrimination or bullying, you can choose what to do. Employers should take steps to prevent it, and take complaints seriously.

UCU opposes unlawful discrimination and will help members who experience it.

Discrimination means that someone has been treated less favourably directly because of one of the above protected characteristics (direct discrimination); or indirectly as a result of a rule or practice that appears to treat everyone equally but puts workers with a particular protected characteristic at a disadvantage (indirect discrimination).

If you think you might have suffered discrimination contact us here – casework@birminghamucu.org – but note that discrimination legal claims normally need to be made within 3 months (minus one day) of the last act of discrimination. So time is an important factor.

Bullying and harassment

Harassment can also be a form of discrimination. Or it may equally be the case that you are being treated badly for no other reason than your manager is a bully, or a colleague has developed a personal grudge.

You can find more details about this on UCU’s website here.

BUCU Feedback on Guidelines for Line Managers on Harassment and Bullying

Since early 2025, BUCU have been in conversation with the University about the Harassment and Bullying Guidelines. Recently, we were asked to provide some feedback on Guidelines for Line Managers. BUCU reached out to our experienced and heroic caseworkers and department reps – because it is our caseworkers and department reps who have worked most closely with our affected members in these traumatic situations – and we all came up with the following, which we have submitted to HR.

 

• Line managers should be given explicit instructions to not bully and harass staff. Line managers are themselves oftentimes the perpetrators of harassment and bullying because of the status and power difference between themselves and the staff that they manage. Currently, the culture in the institution tolerates bullying.  To build a civilized workplace, we recommend that the University adopts a zero-tolerance approach toward bullying and harassment.
• Managers should be encouraged to consider their own biases (conscious and unconscious) and to consider whether they are actually neutral in conflict solutions or whether their neutrality is siding with the oppressor and/or the status quo.
• Our caseworkers observe the tendency for senior management to tolerate reports of bullying and harassment by lower managers in their area, rather than consider the evidence that the management is part of the problem. Our caseworkers have supported a number of members and colleagues in situations where there is a line-manager who has bullied or is bullying a number of direct reports, but nothing happens to stop this behavior. See missing stair metaphor.
• Requiring an Equality Impact Assessment on policies and practices can help managers in considering their own or departmental and cultural biases which might lead to harassment and bullying and have a greater impact on more vulnerable groups of staff.
• The guidance should describe the potential impact on staff experiencing harassment and bullying or being accused of harassment and bullying. In particular the work-related stress risk as a significant number of UoB employees signed off work with stress will be involved in conflict and harassment and bullying in some way.  The guidance can include descriptions of the common symptoms of stress – such as depression, anxiety, anger, crying easily, paranoia, lack of concentration, obsessive thinking patterns and not being able to get the problem out of their head, not sleeping, decrease or increased appetite etc. 
• Line managers should act compassionately toward victims of harassment and bullying. One caseworker told of how one line manager warned a staff member who is a victim of harassment and bullying not to use “unsubstantiated language can be unhelpful for a variety of reasons” when she mentioned the word “harassment” in an email, and refused to sign her PDR because it mentioned the detrimental effect of her experiences of stalking and harassment on her performance. The symptoms of stress or overwhelm from harassment and bullying or being accused of harassment and bullying can mean you are not very easy to communicate with (e.g. because you’re easily upset, or quick to get angry) – managers should have empathy with this rather than responding in antagonistic ways, or refusing to communicate with the person (obviously within boundaries).
• Harassment and bullying are against the law, and have a negative impact on the organization’s culture and efficiency.How do the University and managers learn from mistakes and cases where harassment and bullying are not managed well? Maybe some (anonymized) examples of bad practice (what not to do) would be helpful. Our caseworkers have plenty of examples from casework and personal experience, and the university probably has these examples through the grievances that they receive. 
• Signpost staff to union reps as relevant support/resources as union reps can support and advocate for people dealing with a difficult situation and suffering with stress, when subsequently it is hard to advocate for yourself. Good practice should include allowing people whether experiencing, witnessing or being accused of harassment and bullying to be accompanied to both informal and formal meetings either by a union rep or colleague. One caseworker is currently supporting a member where they were not allowed to attend a meeting that the manager insisted was just to talk about supporting their return to work after experiencing and reporting bullying by their line-manager. In the meeting they were told that the only option was for them to leave as their line manager did not want to resolve the situation and they hadn’t passed probation – because of the problems with their line manager. They are severely stressed, which is why they were off work and so attending this meeting on their own was incredibly harmful to their health! Managers should be encouraged to ask themselves what it is they want to say to someone that they don’t want to say in front of a union rep and whether their rationale contributes to a safe working environment or not. 
• There needs to be a more structural approach toward the prevention of harassment and bullying. Currently, the different parts of the University don’t have an understanding of how to respond to staff seeking help when they are being harassed. One member has been ignored and even discouraged when attempting to seek help and protection from harassment from the different parts of the University, including: 1) academic line manager; 2) Campus Safety & Security; 3) Student Conduct; and 4) Human Resources. 

 

Observation about the policies:

The policies largely engage with individualized responses to bullying and harassment and focus on creating paper trails and don’t enable structural or institutional considerations. Often, managers either simply don’t engage with the policy or focus on the surface level understanding its purpose. There is a persistent favoring of management and seniority rather than protecting more junior or precarious members of staff to ensure they feel safe from harassment and bullying. While we appreciate that you’ve noted the union’s more general points on the policy, and that you will consider our comments when the policy is next reviewed, we would like to get a firm commitment that the points made by the union should be considered now and there should be specific action to reflect the union’s recommendations; otherwise the consultation seems to be a paper exercise at this point.

Finally, we want to note that numerous studies show that pay gaps are linked to bullying and harassment. In other words, where you see bullying and harassment, you will often see wider gaps in pay along ethnic, gender, and disability lines, and across the institutional hierarchies between the highest paid managers and the lowest paid front line staff. In a workplace context where some of the lowest paid staff at the UoB are not even being paid a Real Living Wage, and our own VC makes is among the highest paid in the country, we can certainly see this thesis manifested on our own campus.