FEATURES OF LEGAL PROTECTION OF EMPLOYEES AGAINST DISCRIMINATION, MOBBING, AND HARASSMENT IN THE SYSTEM OF ENSURING DECENT WORK

Abstract

This article provides a comprehensive theoretical, legal, and practical analysis of the mechanisms for protecting employees from such negative phenomena as discrimination, mobbing, and harassment in the context of the modern concept of decent work. The relevance of the study is driven by the recognition at the level of the World Health Organization, the InternationalLabour Organization, and the European Court of Human Rights of a direct relationship between safe working conditions and a person's psychological well-being. It is emphasized that the right to respect for human dignity is an absolute non-property right that requires reliable legal guarantees for its realization within the labor collective. The author highlights the existing problem in scientific doctrine and judicial practice of terminological and substantive conflation of the concepts of discrimination, psychological pressure, and harassment, which significantly complicates the process of protecting violated rights. The paper consistently differentiates these offensesbased on their individual qualifying features. It is substantiated that their common object of infringement is the honor, dignity, and professional reputation of the employee, who, due to the specifics of the employment contract, is in an inherently vulnerable and subordinate position relative to the employer. At the same time, the legal nature of each tort is highly specific. Discrimination is considered as unjustified inequality, requiring the establishment of the absence of a legitimate aim and proportionality in different treatment of persons in similar circumstances. Mobbing is defined as systematic and purposeful psychological or economic pressure, requiring proof of intent to create a hostile environment and the presence of a specific goal, most often aimed at coercing dismissal. Harassment, in turn, is characterized by procedural and material autonomy, as it does not require a comparative basis for proof and can manifest itself in both systematic and single actions that infringe on the inviolability and dignity of the person. Special attention in the article is paid to the procedural aspects of protecting violated rights, in particular, the specifics of the allocation of the burden of proof. It is noted that the procedural obligation of the plaintiff is to provide factual data that gives the court grounds to presume the existence of an offense, after which the burden of proving the lawfulness of their actions shifts to the employer. Based on the analysis of current judicial practice, key problems in law enforcement are identified, including a high percentage of claim dismissals due to unproven facts, problems with recognizing audio recordings as admissible evidence, and the difficulty of refuting mobbing disguised as formally legal managerial decisions or disciplinary sanctions. At the end of the study, the thesis of the insufficient effectiveness of the exclusively jurisdictional form of protection is argued. It is emphasized that a court decision finds a violation, but is incapable of healing the damaged psychological climate in the team, as a result of which the reinstated employee most often resigns voluntarily. Based on this, a well-founded conclusion is made about the strategic need to shift the focus of legal regulation from post factum legal liability measures to corporate prevention mechanisms, the implementation of zero-tolerance policies in local regulatory acts, and strengthening the active role of employers and trade unions in conflict prevention.