September 4th, 2009
Podcast 8: Unions & Bullying
Podcast 8:
Unions & Bullying
Guest Podcast: Carol Fehner, union activist, former union rep, lifelong bullybuster (and WBI affiliate), retired federal worker
Learn what bullied targets should do to get the union to pay attention.
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Tags: AFGE, Fehner, grievance, reps, stewards, Unions
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What if one of your co-worker so happened to be a steward who sets you up on facebook to help initiate your termination. I was not thinking when a co-worker asked me what happened after I was suspended because of a resident bullying me and I told ….. The supervisor took it as a threat to the resident so I was suspended. Because it was someone I work with I did not think about HIPPA rules and I typed in his name. Another co-worker popped up on the screen and told me to delete it and told me, it scared me and I deleted immediately. The co-worker who is a steward took advantage of it by printing it out and turning it in to the supervisor. I was terminated. I feel there is unfairness and humiliated, my self worth is very low. I had been bullied by residents and co-workers for the five year I worked there. One time I reported a nurse bullying me to the supervisor, I was the one who was written up. I never went to her again. This has created a lot of Psychological damages.
The union is not there to help individuals unless those individuals are “specific people” that suit their agenda. Remember they are for the collective
group. Then the ones that they do help get bullied into doing things for them or assist them in bullying other employees that management “their buddies” want to get rid of. Unions are not going to jeopardize their “rapport” with management just for one individual. Remember they are employed their too most of the time. They don’t want to be leaned on.
Distribution of Babiak & Hare’s book “Snakes In Suits: when psychopaths go to work” (2006) to AFGE locals and workplace bullying victims is advisable.
Babiak & Hare are the world’s leaders in psychopathic research. Canadians.
True bullies are on the psychopathic spectrum.
99% of psychopaths are non-violent.
I suffered enormously for three years under a white male supervisor who had a sub-100 IQ and was a pathological liar. Our manager (a white male) waited until the supervisor targeted a black female before acting against him. The supervisor retired soon after being called on the carpet downtown.
Later, a non-violent psychopath wanted a raise and decided to hire a lawyer to figure out how to shake down the manager who was grossly unqualified to be in his position but was favored and tolerated by higher management.
He got the Leader position and hell on earth returned for me. The bully was eventually sent to a marginal job elsewhere at the facility.
One thing led to another and I teed off the manager by either whistleblowing to DoL or simply hurting his ego by not backing down. A reprimand was arranged by HRD.
I retired early from “the last plantation”, as the black guys called the facility.
The union rep who tried to help me thru the stressful reprimand process was sincere but unequipped to handle college educated managers at stage two of the grievance process.
I was the first person in 40 years of the local’s existence to try to go to stage two.
Later, after I retired, there was a renegotiation of the local’s contract removing stage two and one of the signers seems to have died two years earlier!
The manager who signed off on it was “sent downtown”. I never found out if the fraudulent(?)signature was the cause, or if he was fired.
Only a mass desire to cull psychopaths from management at the lowest entry levels of management is going to cure the problem. 100 percent grandfathering is mandatory.
In 20 years we’ll have a bully-free Federal Government. Right now it is incapable of running the country under martial law.
“Snakes In Suits: when psychopaths go to work”.