Archive for the ‘Employer Action/Inaction’ Category
WBI Podcast 26: Stop Attacking Teachers!!
Tuesday, April 17th, 2012
Stop Bullying Teachers
Teachers, as public sector workers with pensions, are under attack in the U.S. The attacks need to stop for two reasons: (1) student bullying can never stop until the adult bullying stops, and (2) the best teachers inspired me to become a professor, they are among the most memorable people in our lives.
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Tags: bullied targets, Louise Fischer, teachers
Posted in Employer Action/Inaction, Podcasts, Social Justice, Unions | 4 Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
Character assassination: Wave 2 for bullied workers & murder victims
Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
The second assassination wave. Bullied workers readily recognize it. They typically wait too long to ask for, hardly ever demanding, justice and humane treatment. The original campaign of interpersonal assault mounted against them, without an ounce of provocation, is wave number one. They hope against hope that time will lessen their burden (it does not) or that someone in authority will recognize the bully is undermining work itself (no one ever does) or that the aggressors will be struck by a thunderbolt of compassion and voluntarily change (they never do). So, when targets do finally complain, they are shocked to learn they are not believed!
Tags: character assassination, murder, Sanford, Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman
Posted in Employer Action/Inaction, Social Justice | 13 Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
Employers Gone Wild: Color Orange Scares Law Firm Manager
Monday, March 26th, 2012
Employment-at-will, a practice that allows employers to fire workers for no good reason, reared its ugly head at the Elizabeth R. Wellborn law firm in Deerfield Beach, FL on Friday March 16, 2012. An unnamed paranoid male “executive” called 14 employees into a room because they all were wearing orange. It was happy hour Friday and they chose to dress alike to be identifiable as a group at the local bar they frequented. He believed wearing orange was a protest. What had he done to feel worthy of a staff protest? One worker explained the innocuous same-color-shirt plan. He fired them all and other “executives” agreed and upheld the mass termination for wearing orange. Four employees spoke to the Sun Sentinel, including a single mother of four, and a woman who said, “Orange happens to be my favorite color. My patio is orange.” Ms. Wellborn, who is an attorney “proud to represent institutional and private lenders in the reclamation of titled assets,” in other words foreclosing on home buyers, probably knew about, and approved, the terminations.
Florida: get fired for wearing orange, get killed for walking from 7-11 while black
Tags: Elizabeth Wellborn, Florida, orange, termination, workplace bullying
Posted in Employer Action/Inaction | 8 Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
HR says workplace bullying declining
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012
SHRM, the Human Resources professional trade association, released results of a non-scientific workplace bullying survey based responses from 400 members on Feb. 28, 2012. Remember, the phenomenon is seen through the lens of HR staff. Here are the major findings to compare and contrast with the national scientific survey conducted of adult Americans, last done in 2010 by WBI.
Tags: HR, SHRM, workplace bullying
Posted in Bullying Tutorials, Employer Action/Inaction | 10 Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
PTSD: A tale of two countries
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012
PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) is a severe consequence for about a third of individuals bullied at work. That is, their coping responses to stress are overwhelmed just as is done to people in war zones or those subjected to personalized assaults akin to rape. For those who suffer PTSD’s symptoms (intrusive thoughts, hypervigilance (including anger), and avoidance of triggering places and situations), the causal connection between bullying and PTSD is clear. Many mental health professionals agree. Heinz Leymann, founder of the international movement, published research documenting the link in the late 1980′s.
Two current stories illustrate the vast gulf between American and Canadian approaches to this mental health dilemma.
Tags: Bill 14, Heinz Leymann, Margaret Macdiarmid, PTSD, Sen. Patty Murray, US Army
Posted in Employer Action/Inaction, Science | 4 Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
The Hook: Bully buster? VQR spurs UVA launch of ‘respectful workplace’
Thursday, March 8th, 2012
This is a Kevin Morrissey suicide story update. The Hook’s investigative reporter, David McNair, reports on the launch of the University of Virginia’s respectful workplace policy and program. Here are my thoughts.
Tags: Kevin Morrissey, policy, respectful workplace, Ted Genoways, Teresa Sullivan, University of Virginia, VQR, workplace bullying
Posted in Bullying in the News, Employer Action/Inaction | 16 Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
The Hook: Final days – Emails show VQR’s ‘awkward workplace scenario’
Thursday, March 8th, 2012
This is a Kevin Morrissey suicide story update. The Hook’s investigative reporter, David McNair, uncovered the e-mail exchanges between Kevin and University HR rep. Angelee Godbold who was somewhat sympathetic to Morrisseey who had been banned from his office for no ojective reason by his editor boss, Ted Genoways. Godbold characterized Morrissey’s situation as an “awkward workplace scenario,” but advised him to follow orders lest he be called “insubordinate.” Frustrated by the administration’s failure to reign in Genoways, Morrissey went over Godbold to more senior officials and the gentle man apologized to Godbold for doing so! Godbold agreed that HR had no power over Genoways, a manager, because he reported directly to the then campus President Casteen. And the president’s office had done nothing to protect Morrissey. The last disparaging e-mail from Genoways to Morrissey was on July 30 at 9:47 am. Kevin committed suicide shortly after that. – GN
Tags: Angelee Godbold, Dave McNair, HR, Kevin Morrissey, Ted Genoways, University of Virginia
Posted in Employer Action/Inaction | 2 Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
Modern Work and Bullying Are Not “Human Nature”
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
WBI colleague, Peter Schnall (editor of the definitive book, Unhealthy Work and founder of the Center for Social Epidemiology) regularly points out that normal human blood pressure is 100/60. Unfortunately, only people living outside the industrialized world enjoy such a healthy BP. We are told our “normal BP” is 120/80, but that’s an average, according to Schnall. Working in our hurried world accounts for the difference.
The informative longitudinal Whitehall studies that track coronary health, including ambulatory BP of British government workers for 40 years, reliably find that workdays differ from weekends and vacation days. Metabolism differs. Just showing up for work carries a set of health risks.
(more…)
Tags: blood pressure, Center for Social Epidemiology, dignitarian, Peter Schnall, stress, stress-related diseases
Posted in Bullying Tutorials, Employer Action/Inaction, Science | 5 Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
WBI Podcast 24: Good People in Organizations Can Prevail
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
Optimism That Work Can Change
Lessons learned from a disaster that dramatically changed a baboon troop’s social culture from cutthroat to kinder comes from the work of Robert Sapolsky (author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers). From this there is reason for optimism that our social system of work can be re-engineeered to be kinder and less war-like. We just have to want to do it!
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Tags: altruism, Robert Sapolsky
Posted in Employer Action/Inaction, Podcasts, Science, Social Justice | 3 Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
City of Norfolk reneges on promise to create workplace bullying policy
Tuesday, December 27th, 2011
VA State Coordinator for the Healthy Workplace Bill, Jane Bethel, holds City of Norfolk accountable for promise to create a workplace bullying policy. Nothing done as of Dec. 27, 2011.
Tags: Jane Bethel, NAGE, Norfolk, Virginia, workplace bullying policy
Posted in Employer Action/Inaction, Legislative Campaign, Social Justice | No Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
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