Archive for the ‘The New America’ Category
Rare, clear, condemning opinion from a politician — Gabby Giffords on cowardly senators
Thursday, April 18th, 2013
Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords wrote in a New York Times guest editorial forcefully about her feelings toward (46) U.S. Senators who voted against the gun control package of bills on April 17. Excerpts from her Op-Ed article are below.
We advocates for anti-bullying legislation are told to tiptoe around lawmakers lest we offend them. Meanwhile the business lobbyists lie about bullying and the specifics of our bill. We get crushed by remaining civil and polite. It’s time for a change.
But Giffords reminds us that elected officials work for us and can be fired when they make wrong decisions. When their self-interest in re-election funds overwhelm doing the right thing for public safety and they coddle the NRA and Gun Owners of America and do their bidding instead. Her remarks are not delicate. Candor from this former politician is welcome.
We take her words as inspiration for all who help the campaign to enact the Healthy Workplace Bill. Giffords is a one-issue advocate now, like us. She spares no wrath when telling the truth. We should be so bold.
Here is some of what she wrote:
Tags: cowardly senators, Gabrielle Giffords, Gary Namie, gun control, Healthy Workplace Bill
Posted in Commentary by G. Namie, Healthy Workplace Bill (U.S. campaign), The New America, Workplace Bullying Laws | No Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
CVS mandates health tests bullying workers, no corporate responsibility for stress-related ill health
Thursday, March 21st, 2013
The pharmacy chain, CVS Chainmark, has taken employee wellness to new draconian levels. On the surface, they are a healthcare giant who can claim to care about employee health. Obesity is a national problem and strains the healthcare system.
So, the 200,000 employees were told that CVS will pay for health screening. By May 1, employees who use employer-provided health insurance (not sure if the premium is 100% borne by CVS) must provide their weight, height, body fat, blood pressure and glucose and fasting lipid levels — ostensibly to know their key health metrics in order to take action to improve their numbers, if necessary. CVS will pay for testing.
Coercion is involved. Employees must sign a form that the screening is “voluntary.” Results are then sent to to WebMD Health Services Group who administers benefits for CVS. There are two consequences for those in poor health. If they refuse to submit to testing, they will pay a $50/month penalty, $600 annually added to their health insurance premium. Second, if they do submit health data, the company, WebMD on behalf of CVS, can limit the employee’s choices of health care plans in the future. Fatties have limited choices.
Tags: bullying and health, CVS, Gary Namie, health insurance, health screening, hypertension, workplace bullying
Posted in Bullying & Health, Commentary by G. Namie, Employers Gone Wild: Doing Bad Things, The New America, WBI Education | No Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
Abused domestic workers may get champion at Obama’s Dept of Labor
Monday, March 18th, 2013
Just when it looked like President Obama knew no one to add to his cabinet that spoke the language of working folks, he has decided to use the nomination to Department of Labor Secretary to hoist Thomas Perez on his shoulders. Said the President today
“He’s the son of Dominican immigrants. He helped pay his way through college as a garbage collector and working at a warehouse. He went on to become the first lawyer in his family. So his story reminds us of this country’s promise”
According to reports, Perez, currently working in the Civil Rights Division of the federal Justice Department, was the second person of color to ever be elected to the Montgomery County (MD) Council. While on the Council, Perez pushed a “bill of rights” for domestic workers, tried to toughen county laws against predatory lending and supported the expansion of medical clinics to serve the uninsured. He also fought to import cheaper prescription drugs for county employees — a plan blocked by the Food and Drug Administration.
Tags: abuse of domestic workers, Barrack Obama, caregivers, domestic workers, GOP, home health aides, housecleaners, nannies, Thomas Perez, U.S. Department of Labor, Unions, workers' rights
Posted in Commentary by G. Namie, Good News, Media About Bullying, Print: News, Blogs, Magazines, The New America, Unions | No Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
Abuse at Work: Still not taboo after all these years
Friday, March 15th, 2013
At WBI we define workplace bullying as health-harming. It not only triggers a host of stress-related diseases that compromise the bullied target’s health, in its severest forms, it is another form of interpersonal abuse. Yes, abuse. Not simply eye-rolling as trivializing critics mischaracterize it. Bullying is a non-physical form of workplace violence. A systematic campaign of interpersonal destruction launched by a single instigator and executed by many joiners. It becomes an attack by many against the lone principled and shocked target.
American society reacts oddly to workplace bullying. Those to whom it has happened (35% of adult Americans) do not doubt its seriousness. Those with no experience are inclined to doubt and castigate the victims as somehow deficient. But we can’t wait for everyone to personally experience it before they agree to stop it.
There is precedent that even in the indisputably violent culture that is the U.S. some forms of abuse have been acknowledged to be morally wrong and prohibited — not eliminated — but frowned upon and condemned. They are taboo — not workplace bullying.
Tags: abuse, child abuse, domestic violence, Gary Namie, student bullying, taboo, workplace bullying, workplace violence
Posted in Commentary by G. Namie, The New America | 2 Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
Who is making politicians do what no one wants them to do?
Tuesday, March 5th, 2013
When we blame others for making us do something we say we don’t want to do — we are simply holding the gun to our heads OURSELVES while accusing others of holding the gun.
The months of lead-up to sequestration (Public Law 112-25, passed by Congress and signed into law on Aug. 2, 2011) were covered by media as political gamesmanship. Who was to blame? Both political parties said that it was a stupid way to make budget decisions. As the Feb. 28, 2013 deadline neared, the blame angle was supplemented with dire predictions about the effect of withdrawing federal dollars for the defense department, the FAA. Sometimes, but not very often, cuts to Head Start for children and the WIC program to feed mothers with children in poverty were mentioned.
Stupid as it was, sequestration was implemented. Despite most saying this was preventable, no one prevented it. I direct readers to my description of the Abilene Paradox to understand how “reasonable” people can make stupid group decisions while fully aware of the stupidity throughout the process.
American politicians also seem reluctant to accept responsibility to serve and help citizens who lack the status granted to wealthy individuals and corporations which protects them during these tough economic times. So, when 750,000 people are predicted to become unemployed, and the losses were totally preventable by Congress, I see the problem being a self-inflicted hostage scenario. Cue the 1974 movie Blazing Saddles and actor Cleavon Little playing the new sheriff. The video clip below says it all. And be sure to watch until the end when the sheriff comments about the audience for his charade. That’s us, the public!
Tags: abilene paradox, blaming others, Blazing Saddles, Gary Namie, gun to head, poor decision making, sequestration, stupid public
Posted in Commentary by G. Namie, The New America | No Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
Killing postal service by a thousand cuts is unnecessary
Thursday, February 21st, 2013
Save the US Postal Service. It employs approx. 650,000 workers. The unionized workers are paid sufficiently (avg. $41K) to enable them to support families, home ownership and purchasing goods to keep the economy alive. They have health insurance and pensions.
This compensation package was typical for unionized workers in the U.S. until recent times when employers eliminated fixed pensions, making workers gamble in the stock market with their own funds to cobble together a pension (401K plans).
The media likes to remind the public that the USPS operates in the red as if they are poorly run. The red ink is the result of a 2006 destructive act passed by Congress. That law, the PAEA, requires $5.5 billion annual pre-payment of 75 years of health insurance for workers. No agency, private employer or any organization in the world does that. There is evidence that the USPS has overpaid and is owed billions.
Congressional post office haters want to shut down the USPS so we all have to use FedEx or UPS to mail and ship. The Postmaster General, CEO, of the USPS, seems to hate the organization he is paid to lead, too. He recently announced the cessation of Saturday letter delivery, saving $2 billion cutting 26,000 jobs, but only a drop in the bucket.
We seem to live in a time of manufactured deceitful “crises.” This problem is entirely preventable. Leave the Post Office and its workers alone. It is NOT a government agency, hasn’t been since the 1970′s. It gets no taxpayer funds. Congress should butt out — after it repeals PAEA. Postmaster Patrick Donahoe should resign.
Here are some of the myths surrounding the unnecessary loss of jobs and the killing of an American public institution mandated by the Constitution.
Tags: APWU, Gary Namie, Murder by Proxy, NALC, Postal Service, USPS
Posted in Commentary by G. Namie, The New America, Unions | No Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
WBI Podcast 31: Politics & Workplace Bullying
Friday, January 25th, 2013
Politics & Workplace Bullying: Inseparable Phenomena
The role of laws governing workplace rights inserts partisan politics into the debate about workers’ rights, and by extension, the future of workplace bullying.
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Tags: Gary Namie, partisan politics, politics, WBI Podcast
Posted in Commentary by G. Namie, Podcasts, The New America, WBI Education | No Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
Lesson from Lance: Bullies don’t “cheat,” it’s the system
Sunday, January 20th, 2013
High profile self-described bully Lance Armstrong teaches disbelievers much about the bullying process. Follow our series: Lessons From Lance.
The ‘System’ Makes Them Do It
Bullies do not offer themselves voluntarily for scrutiny. Given the fact that the WBI-Healthy Workplace Bill has not yet become law in any U.S. state, most of bullying is legal. Without a law, employers don’t have to have airtight policies to prevent or correct it. So, only about 3% try to do a legitimate job of cracking down on offenders.
That means bullies can harm others with impunity. They face little to no risk of negative consequences. There is a mismatch between the lying, cheating, conniving bully and the fact that nothing bad happens to them. Bullies cheat by stealing ideas, credit for work not done, by gathering personal details about their targets’ lives to use against them later, blaming targets for errors that never occurred, and a host of other nefarious tactics.
Tags: cheating, impunity, Lance Armstrong, lying, rewards for bullying, workplace bullying
Posted in Commentary by G. Namie, The New America, Tutorials About Bullying, WBI Education | No Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
Self-labeled bully Lance Armstrong’s “confession” follows bully’s tradition
Friday, January 18th, 2013
In an interview with Oprah on her show The Next Chapter, spread over two nights — Jan. 17 & 18 — disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong admitted publicly that he used drugs to climb to the top of the racing world. Remarkably, he professed that he had become a “bully.” His words, not ours.
Tags: Betsy Andreu, bully, cycling, doping, Emma O'Reilly, Lance Armstrong, Oprah, workplace bullying
Posted in Broadcasts: Video, TV, radio, webinars, Commentary by G. Namie, Media About Bullying, The New America, Tutorials About Bullying, WBI Education | No Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
Unintended consequences of making schools fortresses
Friday, January 18th, 2013
On Jan. 16 Pres. Obama adopted the NRA suggestion that public schools be fortified by police. Already, a third of schools have SROs (School Resource Officers), cops whose beat is the school. The reason is to ostensibly make schools “safer.” Will it be more cops at any price for strained cities and police departments?
Here we go again America. An outrageously disproportionate solution for a problem so rare as to be nearly non-existent, albeit headline grabbing. Meanwhile, on a daily basis, students are exposed to psychological violence from peers and they witness their teachers being victimized by abusive administrators or more senior teachers. They see and emulate the witnessed adult bullying on a regular basis. Anything being done? Nope. The excuse is that there’s no money.
Mysteriously though there will be funds for putting cops in schools, denying coverage of the very cities that hire them. Of course, in urban schools in America street violence long ago walked right in. [Watch season 4 of David Simon's brilliant HBO series The Wire for a realistic portrayal of life in underfunded, overtested, and ignored inner city schools.]
Tags: guns in schools, NRA, SRO
Posted in Commentary by G. Namie, The New America | No Archived Comments | Post A Comment (
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