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It is possible to seek damages long after a worker's contractual relationship with a company ends. In other words, even after severance pay is agreed and paid out, a person who has suffered discrimination can file suit seeking punitive damages.

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What is mobbing?
Spanish media have adopted the English term mobbing to describe a situation dominated by angst, anxiety, tension, nervousness and being ill at ease. It is an epidemic that affects more than 1.5 million Spaniards and 12 million Europeans. Psychological harassment is the one way of firing someone that so far has not triggered a strike.

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Labor relations experts say mobbing is a kind of stress whose postraumatic effects are comparable to those caused by muggings, terrorist attacks, natural catastrophes or rape. Until now, the traditional remedies were to fall ill, ask for sick leave because of depression or quit the job. Fortunately, things are changing thanks to the courts.� Lawsuits alleging workplace discrimination have risen in profile among courts and judges. It is a subject taken very, very seriously.

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Collective bargaining agreements
Some Spanish companies are setting a good example, such as Telef�nica, whose new collective bargaining agreement for 2003-2005, signed on July 24, features a clause on workplace harassment. The clause says the company will deal with such situations firmly and apply disciplinary measures. But it should be noted that the clause was included only after a judge in Barcelona admitted in late 2002 a lawsuit from a Telef�nica worker alleging harassment.

In the workplace, mobbing is to make a person miserable, causing them to lose self esteem, hate their work and yield to the idea of leaving. The National Institute of Workplace Safety and Hygiene defines the practice as the exercising of extreme psychological violence in a systematic and prolongued way -this is defined as six months- against a person on the workplace.

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A recenty study by the University of Alcal� de Henares says moral and psychological harassment in the workplace costs Spanish society more than 100 million euros a year in absenteeism, reduced productivity and leaves of absence. And what is worse, there is still no legislation that protects victims. The profile of the workplace harasser is that of a mediochre, ineffective and self-important person with an offensive need to show who is in charge. The university study says this person hassles the targeted person constantly, plays down or overdramatizes what they do or don't do, and their ultimate goal is to expel this person from the workplace through exhaustion, illness or because they decide to leave. The choice of victim can be guided by jealousy, envy, competitiveness or simply because a boss considers this person a threat to his or her own position.�