January 21st, 2012
Shameless Biz Lobbyists who defend abusive employers
Opponents of the Healthy Workplace Bill
Jan. 17, 2012 testimony before the Washington State Senate committee regarding SB 5789, a modified version of the Healthy Workplace Bill.
Tim O’Connell from the Association of Washington Business (state Chamber of Commerce), Gary Smith from the Independent Business Association, & Marie Clarke from the Attorney General’s office all oppose the anti-bullying bill.
Listen for the deliberate factual errors committed by corporate employment attorney (and union buster according to his online accomplishments) McConnell about the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress. Smith and Clark simply distort the bill and ignore the fact that misconduct without severe health impact will not be actionable.
Assistant AG Clark makes the remarkable assumption that State agencies will be abusive and not be able to prevent being abusive, and therefore, will be held legally liable. They just can’t help themselves. Hmmm. So much for faith in senior administrators of state agencies. These three testifiers all shared a dismissive and arrogant disregard for the plight of traumatized workers subjected to abusive work environments, preferring to argue that current legal “protections” are adequate.
Senator Conway and Senator Kline counter, correctly, that current remedies are inadequate.
Join us in the campaign to enact the law.
Tags: Adam Kline, Assoc of Independent Businesses, Association of Washington Business, Healthy Workplace Bill, opposition HWB, SB 5789, WA state legislature
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 21st, 2012 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Bullying Tutorials, Legislative Campaign. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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What all the lobbiests forget to say is the corporation is an oligarchy and as an oligarchy the employee must do what the ruling people want them to do.
The employee cannot choose who he or she works for. The employee cannot choose what types of work he or she does. The employee cannot take reprisals against a vicous person. The employee must behave according to the rules of the oligarchy.
In addition because of power the managers of the corporation can take reprisals against the employee. They can censure the employee. They can isolate the employee. They can force unwanted work on the employee. They can make unfavorable reports about the employee. They can change the employee’s job or the location of the employee’s work without any permission what so ever. They can demean the employee. They can thwart the employee’s ambition. They can arbitrarily make rules against the employee. They can blacklist the employee. The can “ask” the employee to defend the corporation, even when the corporation is guilty.
etc.
Because of a lack of freedom, the government must seek to protect the employee from abuse. The government has an obligation to protect its citizens from powerful institutions.
In the case of bullying, the governement is not doing its job.
No more need be said.
And the most hideous power a corporation has is the power to force the employee to sign away all of his rights. If you don’t sign, you are SCREWED.
This does not surprise me. It is repulsive, but not surprising.
State attorneys general defend lawsuits against state agencies, offices, universities and other arms of the state. I saw how this works personally when I sued a state university. The assistant AG assigned to defend the university committed acts that helped the university violate state law. She knew state law was violated, but put up every dim-witted and lame effort possible to stall the inevitable. I came away with the opinion that the AG’s office in my state is not only corrupt, but hires bad lawyers. And I am a former attorney.