Mobbing and harassment – similarities and differences

Mobbing is regulated in Art. 94[3] of the Labor Code (consolidated text: Journal of Laws of 2022, item 1510, 1700, 2140, of 2023, item 240), where the legislator placed e.g. its legal definition. Mobbing means actions or behaviors related to an employee or directed against an employee, consisting in persistent and long-term harassment or intimidation of the employee, causing him to underestimate his professional suitability, causing or aimed at humiliating or ridiculing the employee, isolating him or eliminating him from the team of colleagues.

Guided by the above definition, several prerequisites necessary for the occurrence of mobbing can be distinguished:

1. Occurrence of actions or behaviors involving or directed against an employee that:
2. They involve harassment or intimidation
3. They are persistent and long lasting
4. They result in an underestimation of the employee’s professional suitability or result in humiliating or ridiculing the employee, isolating him or eliminating him from the team of employees.

The above conditions must be met jointly, and the burden of proof, i.e. demonstrating their occurrence, rests with the employee. The terms „persistent” and „long-term” may raise doubts – in each case, the nature of the actions is assessed individually by the court. The jurisprudence indicates that the long-term harassment or intimidation of an employee within the meaning of Art. 943 § 2 LC it must be considered on an individual basis and take into account the circumstances of a particular case. Therefore, it is not possible to rigidly indicate the minimum period necessary for mobbing to occur (cf. Supreme Court judgment of 20 October 2016, I PK 243/15).

Further provisions of the Act include the employer’s obligation to counteract mobbing and possible steps that the employee may take in the event of its occurrence – seeking compensation or compensation.

Mobbing should not be equated with harassment, also referred to in the literature as stalking and regulated in Art. 190a of the Penal Code. It means persistent harassment of another person or a person close to them, evoking in them a sense of threat, humiliation or torment, justified by the circumstances, or significantly violating their privacy. There are similarities and differences between bullying and stalking. Both consist of legally permitted behaviors which, only when they occur continuously, turn into mobbing or stalking, respectively. A common feature is also the need for persistence and long-term actions.

Differences include, first of all, a different liability regime – in the case of mobbing, it will be civil liability, and in the case of stalking, it will be criminal liability. The group of entities that may be victims of undesirable behavior is also different – in the case of mobbing, it must be an employee (employed under an employment contract). The purpose or effect of the actions may also be different – the definition of harassment clearly indicates the arousal of a sense of threat, humiliation, anguish, or a significant violation of privacy, when dealing with mobbing, we can say, among others, about lowering the assessment of professional usefulness.