I've been lurking on this website for a while but a recent event at my work place pushed me to make an account just to see what you think and what I should do (I live in Ontario, Canada just for reference).
I work at a bread factory for a few weeks now, relatively new but not completely clueless and there's this asshole at my workplace who's constantly berating and yelling at me every time every time I get near him. He works in a different line from me yet due to the nature of my role it's hard to avoid him.
I didn't mind his abuse because I always kept my head down but that I guess wasn't enough, he just finds enough energy to keep harassing me.
Today's shift was really bad in that as I was getting a cart to feed dough into the machine for the line I work in, he called me from behind to help him lift the dough into the mixer. So I helped him lift the bin to put the dough in the mix and as soon as I thought to put it down he decided to forcefully hit me on the face with the base of the bin. After that he accused me of angry and stood there as if he had done nothing wrong. I was angry, but it's hard not to be when you're forced to work with this asshole.
My glasses was bent, my lens were smudged up and I was left bleeding on the right side of my nose bridge. I didn't even know I was bleeding until a co-worker noticed it and asked me if I was okay.
After a few minutes of confusion and anger I decided to go to my supervisor to first tell him about my bleeding and then about the asshole. The responses he said was confusing, saying that we're human and stuff that gave the benefit of the doubt but after that he said he will talk to the asshole.
I went back to my role kinda defeated and pissed off thinking that nothing will change. I didn't see the asshole for a while so I assumed he went and talked to the supervisor but he came back after a few minutes and just did his usual things, which made me think he bullshitted to support his side of the story. Either way after that shift ended and I'm here typing this.
I'm planning to head to work early next shift to discuss the bullshit I experienced with my supervisor but I'm at a loss currently since this is my first time experiencing this and I'm hoping some of you will help me on this.
Remember for the purpose of legal action it is good to have things in writing, even your own communications.
For example, I do not know if it would be a good idea to ask your employer tomorrow about the possibility of the incident being in the video record, but if we assume that it is, it's probably a good idea to make sure you have like an email or something you can point to to prove that you asked, perhaps written as a "follow up" or whatever.
Why? At least in my limited experience, businesses dump footage pretty quickly. It seems perfectly possible that they would just say they'll get back to you and wait it out for the week or however long until they can dump it on schedule and pretend you never asked. Even if they do stall you and dump it, having a record of having asked soon after the incident can demonstrate malfeasance.
I know this isn't half as substantive as what you were looking for, but I thought I should mention the one part I did know.