A new time for psychosocial health at work: fragments of living law

Abstract

The Court of Justice of the European Union has just ratified that companies are obliged to assess psychosocial factors and risks at work. This preventive obligation includes the workload itself, bud also aspects of the work environment that influence the increase in the «psychosocial burden» related to work. Psychosocial risks include not only violence and harassment at work, but also work stress, burnout, etc. However, lawsuits, in the social and criminal order, on harassment at work continue to have more presence than those related to work-related stress. In addition, both social and criminal jurisdiction assume a very restrictive concept of moral harassment at work. This interpretation is inconsistent with both Spanish constitutional doctrine and ILO Convention 190. In this study, a general, analytical and critical balance is made of the state of the art, judicial and jurisprudential interpretation, on the psychosocial risks related to work.