Registration details.

Playback Sessions: Friday, November 18, 2011 to
 Thursday, November 24, 2011, 9:00 a.m. – midnight EST

Visit the gallery of proclamations.

California cities: Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Santa Cruz, South Lake Tahoe, Culver City, Pittsburg, Antioch, Torrance, Burbank, Carson, Placerville, Palo Alto, and El Dorado County

Texas cities: El Paso, Corsicana, Longview, Killeen, Galveston, San Marcos, Sante Fe, San Antonio, Arlington, New Braunfels, Bedford, Bridgeport, Midland, Rockwall

Throughout Freedom Week, the Texas Healthy Workplace Advocates are hosting an informational table at the state capitol lobby in sight of all passing lawmakers.

Connecticut cities: New London, East Haven, Newtown, Milford, Torrington, Bethel,
Central Connecticut State University

An October 20 6:30-8:30 pm. presentation: “Is Connecticut Ready for Healthy Workplaces?: A Forum on Law, Psychology, and Society’s Response to Abusive Conduct in the Workplace.” Speakers include Tom Witt of New York Health Workplace Advocates, and Vicki J. Magley, Ph.D. Department of Psychology-University of Connecticut. Diloreto 001.

Ohio city: Steubenville

Virginia cities: Newport News, Portsmouth, Norfolk

West Virginia cities: Weirton, Morgantown

A lunchtime power point presentation “Workplace Bullying” by Staff Council member and West Virginia Healthy Workplace Bill State Coordinator Lana Cooke will be given for WVU Classified Staff from noon to 1 p.m. on the following dates: Oct. 17, 401 Marina Tower Conference Room; Oct., 19, Coliseum Jerry West Lounge; Oct. 20, 1 Waterfront Place Visitor’s Center/Theater 1st floor

Oct. 18: WVCUPA-HR Board at the fall WVCUPA-HR Conference, Stonewall Resort Conference Center

Take a moment to sign the Healthy Workplace Bill WV Online Petition

Washington county: Snohomish

Wisconsin city: LaCrosse

State Rep. Kelda Roys & State Sen. Spencer Coggs introduced the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill in the Wisconsin legislature on Oct. 17.

Massachusetts: the HWB Coordinators are introducing new ways to get involved, including our all-new Street Teams, where you can help spread the word at other organizations’ meetings, 5ks, parades, and more. Get all the details at the MA Healthy Workplace Bill website.

Oregon: Celebrate Freedom from Workplace Bullies Week by attending 2 days of workshops in Portland. Dr. Denise Haugen, WBI Affiliate, will be presenting! Find more information at the CNRG website.

Rep. Kelda Roys

Contact Rep. Roys, Wisconsin Assembly (608) 266-5340.

- personal shame by targets (who would brag about being humiliated?)
- coworkers frozen by bullies into not helping their bullied colleagues
- executives covering up for bullies they sponsor/support
- bullying is the American style of managing

Over time, fear paralyzes us all. Overcoming the inertia of inaction is difficult. We know.

But the most successful personal change plans are the ones triggered by events that suggest karma is working — a sign from above, a coincidental omen. That event becomes the excuse, the rationale, for doing something out of the ordinary.

WBI’s Freedom from Workplace Bullies Week is the reason to change how you are dealing with your bullying situation.

- City and County executives can formally recognize Freedom Week by proclamation. At the start of Freedom Week 2011, over 30 municipalities have issued such proclamations. Visit the gallery of proclamations.

- Bullied individuals and their families can take stock of the extent of the psychological injuries sustained from bullying. It sneaks up on everyone. High blood pressure goes undetected until the family physician asks what is stressful in your life. Use Freedom Week as the excuse to schedule an appointment to have your blood checked and to look for the onset of stress-related diseases. Ignoring your personal health is not a good idea. Bullying can kill. Please give your health as high a priority as keeping the salary to keep a roof over your head. If you die, no salary will have been worth it. Family members: please give your bullied partner or spouse the support she or he requires. They can build up credits that can be repaid when the bullying situation ends. Read the book The Bully At Work.

- Managers and executives need to calculate the financial losses attributable to preventable bullying. Bullies are actually too expensive to retain. However, the truth is that you are too loyal to bullies who have conned you over the years. When you acknowledge that “Bob” is a jerk, you are admitting the problem. But when you consider Bob indispensable, regardless of costs to the organization or his effect on others, you are condemning everyone to a living hell. Balance the needs of the business (profit making or budget balancing) with the narcissistic needs of Bob. Do the math. Talk to your Risk Manager. Bob is a liability. Stay friends if you must, but cut Bob loose for the sake of many. Honor your fiduciary responsibility to the organization. Bob will live on (elsewhere). Read the book The Bully-Free Workplace.

- Insurers and attorneys should warn your employer clients to prevent and correct costly bullying for their own self-interest and cost savings. Whether or not the employer has employment practices liability insurance (EPLI), bullying is costly. Premiums rise when liability increases. Bullies pose increasingly costly risks. Attorneys: you have been writing in recent years how your clients need to squelch bullying even though no specific laws exist. Continue this advice. Use Freedom Week to bolster that message. Visit The Work Doctor website to assure clients that something can be done about bullying.

- State lawmakers should enact legislation to curb bullying in the workplace. The Healthy Workplace Legislative Campaign has been around since 2003. It exists to help sympathetic lawmakers of all political parties to address health-harming abusive conduct at work (no need to call it workplace bullying). The Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB) has been introduced in 21 states. In 2011, the HWB is alive in 11 states, including Massachusetts and New York. During Freedom Week, Wisconsin state Rep. Kelda Roys and Sen. Spencer Coggs are introducing the HWB in both legislative chambers.

Namie directs a national network of citizen lobbyists, which is working to pass into law the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill. He taught the first U.S. university course on workplace bullying and was an expert witness in the nation’s first “bullying trial” in Indiana.

Namie and his wife, Dr. Ruth Namie, produce information on eight public websites devoted to education about bullying for citizens, lawmakers, unions and employers. Their work has been featured on “Today,” “Good Morning America,” CNN, NPR and in newspapers across the country.

To ease traffic congestion caused by construction in the area, visitors attending the event may park in the large parking lot east of Rutherford Boulevard and ride the Raider Xpress shuttle to the Business and Aerospace Building.

For more information, contact Dr. Jackie Gilbert in the Jones College of Business at 615-898-5418. You also may check out Gilbert’s blog on bullying.

Pam Bowman was always the problem at work. They said she was stupid, unreliable, unprofessional and disliked. She couldn’t even boil water properly.

A victim of workplace bullying, Bowman spent about 15 years facing increasingly hostile treatment from co-workers, leading to serious health problems, the collapse of a career in veterinary technology and a seemingly endless fight for her right to a safe and healthy workplace.

Pam Bowman (left) and Monica Kreuger are two of the main ingredients in the Powerless to Powerful Conference this weekend that helps employers address the problem of bullying in the workplace and gives support to victims Photograph by: Richard Marjan, The StarPhoenix

“It was just chronic stress. It was like going into a war every day. What was going to happen next?” she said in an interview this week.

Earlier this year Bowman reached a settlement with her former employer, freeing her to move on to a new, entrepreneurial phase in her life. She now plans to start her own business to help people facing workplace bullying and help employers understand the consequences of such an activity.

“It’s a serious health and safety issue and it’s not as benign as people would like to imagine,” she said.

“It’s a really horrible situation all around for everybody, it’s not productive and from a business point of view, it’s really bad.”

MAKING THINGS BETTER

Bowman will attend a local event Saturday aimed at addressing harassment at work, an issue that is said to affect one in three people. The Business and Professional Women’s Club of Saskatoon’s (BPW) first-ever Powerless to Powerful Workplace Bullying Conference will feature workplace bullying experts speaking on the emotional, economic and legal consequences of such an action.

The conference is a way to help employers address the problem and victims find support, Bowman said.

“The intent is to create an awareness to be very supportive of individuals, family, society and businesses, especially, in tackling this so that we can make everything better — to provide awareness and tools so that it is not an issue that remains the elephant in the room,” she said.

SOLUTION STARTS ON THE INSIDE

For Monica Kreuger, a BPW member and event organizer, the issue of bullying in the workplace goes beyond a women’s issue. It’s a matter of personal health and safety.

“The devastation that creates . . . to the community and to the workplace is one thing, but I’ve just been stunned as to the devastation it creates to the individual,” Kreuger said.

Kreuger, an advocate for entrepreneurialism, says the responsibility for preventing workplace bullying lies with the people behind the business.

“When we create our own workplaces, which we do as entrepreneurs, we need to put the right things in place to make sure everyone who works with us has a healthy workplace,” she said.

“We might not even see it happening, but we need to know, we need to have a process in place to make sure it stays healthy.”

Kreuger hopes the conference brings the issue of workplace bullying to light in Saskatoon.

“If you had any disease where one in three people suffered we would have a solution, we would have research dollars at the table, we would have drives to raise funds to create solutions to the problem — we would have that in place, but we don’t,” she said.

Bowman hopes her story will help employers, victims and bullies realize the effect workplace bullying can have on business.

“This could have very easily been dealt with when it was little, but it got to be a monster,” Bowman said. “So if everybody can come together when it’s little, it benefits everybody, especially businesses.”

ckyle@thestarphoenix.com

POWERLESS TO POWERFUL

Saturday Oct. 23 , 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Travelodge Hotel

$148 full day, $95 for students

$50 luncheon keynote with an address by Dr. Gary Namie, Workplace Bullying Institute

Special Events for the Week

• OCT. 19. Thanks to the Texas Healthy Workplace Advocates, El Paso Mayor John Cook and the City Council will proclaim on October 19, Freedom from Bullies at Work Week! If you live in Texas, thank the Mayor. If you want to help Texas enact the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill, contact the TX State Coordinator.

• OCT. 19, 5 pm (central time) on Pattie Porter’s Texas Conflict Coach radio show, the story of Kevin Morrissey’s suicide in response to his prolonged mistreatment at the Univ. of Virginia. Thank you, Pattie!

• OCT. 19 Wisconsin State Rep. Kelda Roys (sponsor of the state’s first bill, AB 894 in 2010) will be interviewed by Madison NBC-TV 15 news anchor Carleen Wild about her work in support of the legislation and 2011 plans. Air time is not yet set. Track the Wisconsin Healthy Workplace Advocates group for the schedule. If you live in Wisconsin, contact the WI State Coordinator to volunteer to help.

• OCT. 19 & OCT. 20 The California Healthy Workplace Advocates host Workplace Bullying Institute founders giving a public seminar, doors open at 6 pm, talk is 7 to 9 pm. Oct. 19 they will be in South San Francisco. Oct. 20 they will be in Sacramento. Come meet the Namies and CHWA volunteers to learn about legislative plans for 2011. If you live in California, contact the CA State Coordinator to volunteer to help.

• OCT. 23-24 BPW Saskatoon, Saskatchewan hosts a special conference for the community, “Powerless to Powerful.” Several workshops and presenters are scheduled. Topics include workplace bullying, the Ruth and Gary Namie will present, too.

Celebrate with us!

To help celebrate Freedom Week 2010 in Northern California, spend

An Evening with Ruth and Gary Namie

Tuesday October 19, South San Francisco – Grosvenor Best Western Hotel
Wednesday October 20, Sacramento — Radisson Sacramento

Each night the doors open at 6 pm.

The Drs. Namie will lead a seminar from 7 to 9 pm covering.
• Updates on the newest science related to bullying
• Status of the workplace bullying movement begun in Benicia in ’97
• Employer responses to bullying
• Status of the law in various states

Afterwards, members of California Healthy Workplace Advocates (CHWA) will be present to describe the 2011 campaign to enact the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill.

S. San Francisco hotel location: 380 S. Airport Blvd., SSF
Sacramento hotel location: 500 Leisure Lane, Sacramento

Registration is $25 per person.
Inscribed copies of the Namies’ book, revised ’09 edition, The Bully At Work, must be preordered at time of registration.
$40 covers event + book

REGISTER ONLINE (using secure PayPal) or call with your credit card — 360-656-6630

Download and share the event flyer.

Make your own Freedom Week celebration/demonstration/project/rally.

Freedom from Workplace Bullies Week is a chance to break through the shame and silence surrounding bullying. It is a week to be daring and bold. So, what are you going to do? The WBI wants to know!

Please share your ideas for how to celebrate Freedom from Workplace Bullies in a comment below. We’d love to hear them!

See the information and tools we have available to help you get started.

Celebrate with us!

MARK YOUR CALENDAR!!

The Saskatoon chapter of Business & Professional Women hosts the

Powerless to Powerful Conference

Empowering ourselves against workplace bullying

Saturday-Sunday October 23-24

Travelodge, 106 Circle Drive, Saskatoon

Saskatchewan

Hon. D. Morgan, Q.C.

Invited Guests:

• Don Morgan, MLA, Minister of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety

• Peter J. Barnacle, Woloshyn & Co. Barristers, Labour & Employment specialist

• Dr. Ruth Namie & Dr. Gary Namie, Workplace Bullying Institute, presentations on Sat. Oct. 23

Ruth: (1) Impact of Bullying on Individuals, Family & Community; (2) Targets & Self-Defeating Strategies

Gary: (1) Identifying Bullying; (2) Converting Witnesses to Interveners; (3) Causes of Bullying in Societal & Organizational Traditions

• Shelle Rose Chavert & others

Online registration available here.

As a follower of the workplace bullying phenomenon, you are invited to join the new IAWBH organization. Tell your friends. Begun at the biannual conference held in Montreal in 2008 (described at this site), this group which was primarily limited to academic researchers in the early years is now reaching out to a broader constituency — clinicians, practitioners, non-academics.

The next conference is June 2-4, 2010 in Cardiff, Wales. WBI will be represented with Dr. Gary Namie and Prof. David Yamada delivering keynote addresses and presenting papers.

“Delivers a potent mix of shocking truth, honest analysis and dark humor”
COMING TO THEATERS IN 2010

Feature documentary Murder by Proxy: How America Went Postal offers a provocative examination of the possible role of hostile work environments in mass murder incidents, starting with the earliest USPS mass murder-suicide in 1986.

At a time when tensions are rising again in the Postal Service and in other workplaces across America, Murder By Proxy is a simply a must-see film.

Spread the word, forward the link to this announcement to your friends

But for individuals overwhelmed by the emotional morass of early-stage bullying or the effects of prolonged exposure to workplace stress, we offer telephone coaching/counseling by Jessi Brown, MS, LMHC, LPC. We plan to offer her telephone services one day per week starting in December. That day has not been determined yet. You can request a 55 min. session with Ms. Brown via e-mail (info at workplacebullying dot org)  and we will contact you to select a convenient time.

INTRODUCTORY RATE of $50 (US) per hour.

Freedom from Workplace Bullies Week was a chance to break though the shame and silence surrounding bullying. It was a national call to action. Anyone can participate in the way they seem fit. Here are some examples of ways people celebrated.

“I composed an unemotional, professional letter to our Board of Directors and sent it.”

“I put up a poster in my local career center. “

“I put a poster in the HR office, and published an article in our company’s newsletter.”

“I posted awareness messages on my facebook and myspace accounts about Freedom Week. I also posted it on my anti-bully blog.”

“I wrote a letter to our local chamber of commerce.”

One college professor led a discussion on the topic of workplace bullying.

Many people reported having conversations with loved ones or co-workers. Many others posted posters around their home town.

Thank you to all who participated.
If you are interested in doing more for Freedom From Bullies Week next year please let us know.

Sponsored by the American Psychological Association/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health /Society for Occupational Health PsychologySan Juan, Puerto Rico | The Conference Program | The Conference Website

WBI participation

Symposium: Case Studies in Workplace Bullying – Just Scratching the Surface of Costs and Consequences.  Saturday Nov. 7:  11:30-12:45.  Presenters: Gary/Ruth Namie, Kathy Rospenda, Joel Neuman, Suzy Fox, David Yamada

Roundtable: Workplace Bullying: From Research to Activism. Sunday Nov. 8: 9:45-11.   Presenters: Suzy Fox, Lamont Stallworth, David Yamada, Gary/Ruth Namie, Joel Neuman

Paper: Bullied Workers Shunned in U.S. Workplaces.  Sunday Nov. 8: 2:45-3:45. Presenters: Gary/Ruth Namie

You can read the research works by these WBI-affiliated scholars in the WBI Research section for friends.

Take a stand. Do something different if only during this week. Eventually, we will gather and march on corporations and state legislatures demanding justice. For now, your victory may be completely personal and internal or within the work team or among loved ones. Just do something differently this week. For your health’s sake if you are the one targeted or for the others you care about.  See our suggestions.

TELL THE WORLD WHAT YOU HAVE PLANNED — POST IT IN A COMMENT HERE

Download and print the Poster for your office or home(in .pdf)

Dr. Gary Namie and Carrie Clark (WBI-LC State Coordinator) Thank you, NAACP!

Panel: Bill sponsor Stephen Sandstrom;  Utah Nurses Assoc president Nancy Watts;  Lauren Scholnick, attorney;  G. Namie & D. Halverson, WBI;  Sharlene Watson and Laura Sorenson, nurses. From this meeting will come a Utah Healthy Workplace Advocates group. Contact the WBI-LC State Coordinator ut@healthyworkplacebill.org  to be connected.

The event was held Sunday Oct. 25, 2009 at Village Books, Bellingham, WA. Village Books, 1200 11th Street, Bellingham, WA‎, (360) 671-2626‎

View the segment:

[See post to watch Flash video]

Warning: advice from the in-studio Career Expert does not reflect the reality of bullied targets, the voluminous research, or advice that we at WBI give.

Listen to Podcast 5: Beware Bad Advice for a different perspective.

Visit the revised Work Doctor website.

Work, Stress and Health 2009
Global Concerns and Approaches
The 8th International Conference
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Sponsored by the American Psychological Association / National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety / Society for Occupational Health Psychology

The Conference Website

2010 Cardiff Conference

June 2-4, 2010

Cardiff, Wales, UK

The conference website

Completely rewritten

Order from this page for discount

Enjoy

If the prior edition of this book helped you when you were bullied at work, please write a comment below. Thanks,

GN & RN