1. What is Mobbing (Psychological Harassment) and How is it Identified in the Workplace?

According to court decisions, mobbing (psychological harassment) is defined as a set of deliberate negative attitudes and behaviors by other employees or employers in the workplace, targeting a specific individual, carried out systematically, repeatedly, and continuously, with the aim of intimidating, incapacitating, marginalizing, or forcing the person to resign. This concept, also defined as “Bezdiri” (harassment/annoyance) by the Turkish Language Association, is characterized as a kind of “psychological terror.”

Key Elements and Defining Characteristics:

  • Systematic and Continuous: For an act to be considered mobbing, it must not be an isolated incident occurring due to momentary anger. The behaviors must be spread over a certain period, become systematic, and be continuous. For example, arguments that occurred only three days before the termination date or one-off rude behaviors are not considered mobbing.
  • Targeted: The actions must be focused on a specific employee or group of employees. If a manager is generally harsh, authoritarian, or rude to everyone, and it does not involve a specific animosity directed solely at one person, it is not considered mobbing.
  • Intent and Purpose: The behaviors must be malicious, vengeful, cruel, and aim to alienate, harass, or force the victim to resign from the workplace.

Signs of Mobbing in the Workplace and its Detection: In court decisions, concrete behaviors and signs indicating the presence of mobbing are listed as follows:

  • Attack on Professional Reputation: Assigning tasks that do not align with the employee’s skills and experience, or that conflict with their career (e.g., assigning a computer operator to work at the operating room door), assigning meaningless tasks, constant change of assignment location, withdrawal of authorities.
  • Social Exclusion and Communication Barriers: Ignoring the employee, cutting off communication, interrupting them, not inviting them to meetings, spreading gossip or slander about them.
  • Ill-treatment and Humiliation: Loud scolding, humiliating them in front of other employees, accusing them of incompetence, insults (expressions such as “don’t you have a brain?”, “I will transfer you all”), mockery.
  • Physical and Administrative Pressures: Withholding passwords and keys, throwing documents, acting contrary to the duty of equal treatment, unfairly filing a report or initiating a disciplinary investigation.
  • Effects on the Victim: Individuals subjected to mobbing exhibit psychosomatic and psychological symptoms such as crying spells, insomnia, loss of appetite, depression, anxiety, sudden anger, reluctance to go to work, nausea, and palpitations. However, not every psychological distress or workplace stress is mobbing; while stress is a general phenomenon, mobbing is target-oriented.

2. Proof of Mobbing Application

In judicial decisions, for proving mobbing allegations, due to the nature of labor law, the principle of “approximate proof” (prima facie proof) has been adopted instead of “absolute proof”.

Burden and Method of Proof:

  • Principle of Approximate Proof: In proving mobbing, 100% conclusive evidence is not sought. When the employee presents “facts that raise suspicion” and “strong indications” (consistent narratives, typical course of events) that they were subjected to mobbing, the burden of proof shifts.
  • Shifting the Burden of Proof: When the employee presents a strong indication of the existence of mobbing, the employer becomes obliged to prove that such a situation did not occur or that they acted in accordance with the principle of equal treatment. If the employer fails to prove that no pressure was applied, the existence of mobbing is accepted.

Evidence That Can Be Used:

  • Witness Statements: This is one of the most important pieces of evidence in proving mobbing. However, witness statements must not be “hearsay,” but rather direct eyewitness accounts, concrete, consistent, and include dates and locations. If witnesses state that the manager treated everyone poorly, not just the plaintiff, the mobbing claim may be weakened.
  • Medical Reports: Doctor’s reports, prescriptions, and diagnoses (such as anxiety, etc.) indicating psychological treatment serve as supporting evidence to show the effects of mobbing. However, a medical report alone may not be sufficient unless a causal link is established.
  • Written and Digital Records: Email contents, camera recordings, shift schedules, assignment letters, minutes, WhatsApp conversations.
  • Other Evidence: Expert reports, labor inspector reports, Ethics Committee applications. Furthermore, if mobbing actions involve insult or threat and there is an ongoing criminal case regarding this, the outcome of the criminal case is considered as a “preliminary issue” and evaluated as evidence.

Cases Where Proof Failed:

  • Claims remaining abstract and not being concretized (no specific place, time, or event mentioned).
  • Witness testimonies being inconsistent or relying solely on the plaintiff’s statements.
  • Negative experiences not showing continuity (isolated incidents).
  • Inability to prove that actions falling within the employer’s management right (e.g., the administration’s discretionary power or legitimate job changes) are arbitrary.

Secondary Source Information (The information in this section is compiled from dissenting opinions or indirect references within the decision texts and provides additional context.)

  • Supreme Court 4th Civil Chamber (2010/5813) Dissenting Opinion: It has been stated that mobbing can manifest as individuals at the management level harboring hostility towards their colleagues and escalating this hostility to form a front. According to this secondary view, mobbing can intensify to such an extent that it can affect not only the employee but even their unborn child (e.g., hindering access to healthcare during pregnancy). In such cases, the issuance of documents like “referral slips” or the abuse of administrative powers should be considered significant indicators of the existence of mobbing.