Bullied targets speak out at Jan. 17, 2012 testimony before the Washington State Senate committee regarding SB 5789, a modified version of the Healthy Workplace Bill.

Bullied targets: Martha (speaking on behalf of over 100 state workers), Thomas, Elaina, “I’m Done!” Richard, Christine, Linda, Mario & Deb

Gary Namie from the Workplace Bullying Institute

Union supporters: Seamus from the Washington Public Employees Association, Sean from the Western Pulp & Paper Workers, Rebecca from the WA State Labor Council, & Melissa from the Washington State Nurses Association.

Thank you all. Join us in the campaign to enact the law.

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.

So, here we educate site visitors about a key part of the HWB as introduced in the 21 states since 2003. The bill requires the “private right of action.” That means that individuals wanting to sue using the bill after it becomes law must rely on an attorney they find and hire. There need not be government involvement.

If you were to want to be a plaintiff in a discrimination lawsuit, you must first go through the federal EEOC with your complaint. The EEOC will eventually give you permission to sue with a “right to sue” letter. Then, your case would require you pay for a private attorney.

If you allege that your employer violated either a state or federal occupational safety regulation, you would necessarily file a complaint with your state’s OSH department or the federal Dept of Labor/OSHA. Government gets involved. Unfortunately, U.S. occupational safety and health regulations are scant. Worse yet, employer penalties for confirmed violations are laughable. Preventable death of an employee costs only $10,000! Fines are a joke. Inspections are pre-announced and toothless.

Federal OSHA has been de-fanged by the combination of (1) deliberate gutting of budget adequacy by political opponents of both parties (corporate loyalists) in Congress for many decades that dictates too few inspectors in a large country, and (2) a reluctance to regulate and punish unsafe employers that converted to OSHA’s push to help employers “comply.”

Here are the arguments in favor the “private action” provision contained in the HWB.

1.) When state agencies process complaints for citizens, it costs the State money. Staff time is required for intake interviews, data coding, investigations, adjudication, appeals, and case completion. State money is better spent on requisite social services during austere times.

Our appeal to legislators to enact the HWB involves persuasion and convincing. One of the bill’s most attractive features is that it will be “revenue neutral.” It will not cost the state money when it becomes law.

2.) A second reason to elect private right of action over state enforcement is the transparency that court filings provide. Employers can be held accountable via lawsuits and press attention. Bullying situations may be resolved to preserve positive public relations by employers.

With state involvement, especially using OSH violations, accused employers and individuals are assured secrecy under the cloak of confidentiality. Similarly, retaliation of complainants (a routine practice) is kept hidden from view.
Secret internal complaint handling by employers is one of the factors accounting for workplace bullying’s prevalence. Abuse conducted behind closed doors can be denied and not dealt with. That prevalence was demonstrated in two national representative (scientific) surveys in 2007 and 2010 by the Workplace Bullying Institute.

3.) Third, state agencies have slow bureaucratic processes. Even if we assume state staff are expert investigators, current agency cases languish for years. Proceedings are drawn out when employers contest jurisdictional issues. For example, a person using the state is stalled while the employer argues over whether the case is governed by workers compensation laws or disability or should be in civil court. Years pass. No progress.

4.) Fourth, state and federal OSH violations result in insufficient penalties to discourage future instances of health-harming abusive conduct in American workplaces. When cases require retributive justice to ameliorate bullying, gentle recommendations or calls for voluntary change fall short.

Additionally, the health-harm effect threshold found in the HWB is not a simple statement about what is required to ensure that workplace bullying happens. Bullying happens long before health harm is demonstrable. However, if one wants to use the courts to seek justice, there is an additional requirement. It is not enough to have been bullied to file a lawsuit. I think we all agree that courts should not be clogged with trivial (hurt feelings) cases. Rather, when bullied targets are traumatized and seriously impaired, the probability of being taken seriously by the court increases.

5.) State agency directors are political appointees. Governors bring their own partisanship to state governance. When a particularly rabid anti-worker governor gets elected (in 2010, this is exactly what happened in Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, South Carolina). It is certain that no state agency would faithfully investigate workers’ complaints of abusive mistreatment by employers who have contributed to the Governor’s election campaign. In other words, prosecution of investigations and enforcement will depend on the political leanings of the administration in power at the time.

6.) State involvement permits free complaint filing by individuals. Genuinely bullied targets would want to file, but bullies will likely use the process to attack their targets, this time with the state’s help. The beauty for bullies is that the state would absorb costs. No attorney need be retained. It’s free to make trouble for others.

Thus, state involvement increases the risk of frivolous complaints. Whereas a reliance on private right of action forces individual plaintiffs to pay for an attorney. The cost prohibitive nature of lawsuits screens out cases without merit, and courts can easily dismiss cases without merit. Free filing exposes the process to risk from bullies determined to abuse the process.

Given the above 6 reasons, we discourage state lawmakers from abandoning the “private right of action” provision of the HWB. This is not the time to strain already scant state fiscal resources.

Gary Namie
Healthy Workplace Campaign

For another tutorial on the HWB, read this article.

For another tutorial on the HWB, read this article.

Workplace bullying has become rampant because it is driven by a buyer’s market in jobs.

In my professional practice of supporting clients in planning their retirement, I am increasingly experiencing clients and prospects who talk about workplace bullying scenarios. When I ask whether they are referring to sexual harassment, age discrimination or cause-based performance issues, they more frequently refer to being abused by practical jokes, harassment, intimidation and threats of job loss and downsizing. I have clients who have lost their jobs or have been forced to quit due to a narcissistic manager who has enjoyed virtually unrestricted rein in threatening job loss or career damage.

Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute in Bellingham, Wash., contrasted the difference between tough, accountable management and bullying by defining it as “… bullying is a level of misery that falls on disproportionately few.” Certainly, none of us have to be sociologists and economists to understand the harm that workplace bullying can cause. Morale issues, organizational sabotage and productivity declines would be a good start for a list of rational reasons to support a call for legislation to curb this serious problem.

In Massachusetts, the issue of infringement on dignity by employers is coming to a head with legislation written by Suffolk University Law professor David Yamada. House Bill 2310 and Senate Bill 916 — The Healthy Workplace Bill — was the subject of a Statehouse hearing by members of the Committee on Labor and Workforce Development this past summer.

The basic premise of the bill is to create a legal claim for bullying victims who can establish that they were subjected to malicious, health-harming behavior. It also provides defenses for employers who act preventively and responsively with regard to bullying.

Considering that this nation endured hard fought conditions that ushered in one of the greatest surges in human dignity legislation starting with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, I think it is time for employers and business owners, empowered with the economic leverage of job rationing, to be held accountable for their transgressions.

Joe D’Amore

Groveland

[See post to watch Flash video]

In 2012, we expect a flurry of activity. There will be hearings for existing bills, new bills introduced, bills moving to floor votes and a real chance that one or more states may pass the HWB into state law. To prevent confusion during the hectic period when inaccurate portrayals of the HWB will surface, let me clarify our goals for the bill proposed in every state and then showcase the key features of the bill and distinguish it from what wounded, but unhealed, targets of bullying might wish for.

Repeated, Harmful Abusive Conduct Defined

It is important for legal laypeople to understand that the text of the HWB was written by Suffolk Law Professor David C. Yamada. He has made workplace bullying his legal specialty. His year 2000 treatise published in the Georgetown Law Journal was the U.S. legal world’s introduction to bullying and the need for “status-blind” harassment protections for workers. He modeled the HWB on existing anti-discrimination statutes. Practicing attorneys and we who are not familiar with the structure of laws make the poorest critics. That’s why we at WBI accept the HWB completely as the best model legislation for contemporary America.

Legal critics and bully apologists love to claim that bullying is too ambiguous, subjective, and undefinable. Not true. As a first step, we do not refer to “workplace bullying” anywhere in the HWB text. Given the full range of manifested bullying possible, from mild and covert to severe, it only makes sense to have a law address the most egregious, harmful and severe forms. The HWB puts the misconduct on par with domestic violence and other potentially traumatizing experiences. If people are to be given the right to sue, it must not be over a misunderstood interpretation of an arched eyebrow.

Here is the definition codified in HWB. “Abusive conduct is conduct, including acts, omissions, or both, that a reasonable person would find hostile, based on the severity, nature, and frequency of the defendant’s conduct. Abusive conduct may include, but is not limited to: repeated infliction of verbal abuse such as the use of derogatory remarks, insults, and epithets; verbal or physical conduct of a threatening, intimidating, or humiliating nature; the sabotage or undermining of an employee’s work performance; or attempts to exploit an employee’s known psychological or physical vulnerability.” Who gets to say what is verbally abusive or threatening? The recipient, just as in anti-discrimination law.

A Necessarily High Standard

Therefore, not every person offended by the actions of others could use the HWB. The bill requires that harm be demonstrated by a medical or mental health professional or that the employer foolishly punished the plaintiff worker by demotion, punitive transfer, retaliation or termination (some adverse employment action). Serious harm required to pursue a serious lawsuit against either the employer, the perpetrator, or both.

Critics argue that courts will be flooded with baseless lawsuits that employers love to call “frivolous.” But system hurdles will minimize the chances of that happening. First, plaintiffs will have to pay for a private attorney out of pocket to mount a case. Costs alone discourage filing cases just to annoy employers. Attorneys will not accept cases with no to little chance of winning. Judges are quick to grant summary judgment to employers (they throw out the entire lawsuit by siding with employers before hearing evidence).

Abusive conduct must be malicious, as defined in the HWB, not by the court. “Malice is defined as the desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another.” This requirement also will help sort out trivial bullying from health-harming abuse. In severe bullying cases, this standard will most likely be met.

High standards are necessary to weather challenges of constitutionality, if they arise. Laws should have a higher standard to meet, a higher threshold of impact and severity, than company policies. Bullying happens before the onset of health harm. That’s why companies should be less tolerant of the misconduct and respond earlier than any law should require.

The Primary Reason to Enact the HWB

There are two goals stated in the text of the bill. First, it provides legal incentives for employers to prevent and respond to abusive mistreatment of workers. Second, it plugs holes in existing labor laws by allowing employees who have been harmed psychologically, physically or economically by being deliberately subjected to abusive work environments to seek legal relief which they cannot now do.

A good, non-abusive, employer need not fear the HWB becoming law. However, if abuse is routine practice in an organization’s work environment, that employer requires prodding to stop. WBI surveys show that employers do nothing 44% of the time when bullying is reported (according to the national 2007 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey) and the most common response of employers to bullying (according to an online survey of bullied targets, the real consumers of bullying-related employer responses) is to actively resist employee’s desire to address it (46%) and to remain unengaged (35%) with only 3% of employers creating specific policies and faithfully enforcing them.

It is obvious without the threat of litigation, employers can continue to ignore bullying. Plugging the gap in the law does that. More important is the use of the HWB to dangle the incentive for employers to do what they should be doing voluntarily. With the threat of vicarious liability (holding the employer liable for the misconduct of their managers (72% of bullies are bosses)), employers can be compelled to act.

Employers On, Then Off, the Hook

Plaintiffs can sue their employer (the entity with insurance to cover legal defenses for this type of misconduct, called Employment Practices Liability Insurance – EPLI) because managers are “agents” of the employer and are considered to have acted on the employer’s behalf, whether or not the bully’s actions are known to the employer. That’s the point of employer vicarious liability.

Under HWB, plaintiffs have the option of suing their bully. The only defense for an abuser is if he or she acted “at the direction of the employer, under threat of an adverse employment action.” In other words, the bully was made to do the bidding of the employer under threat.

The HWB text states that if “the employer exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any actionable behavior;” then it would not be held liable. That means that if the employer has a policy (a preventive act) and enforced it (corrected promptly), the employer escapes liability. It cannot be sued. It has a defense against a claim.

The get-out-of-responsibility provisions in the HWB for employers are called “affirmative defenses.” They are the incentives for employers to start addressing, rather than ignoring bullying. Similarly, the HWB cannot be used against employers if a bullying correction process was in place and the target did not use it, or if the employee was punished for poor performance, misconduct, illegal or unethical activity, or if “economic necessity” led to termination.

Inadequacy of Current Laws

The conclusion of Yamada’s seminal law journal article that launched the HWB is that the tort that most closely fits cases of workplace bullying, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED), nearly always fails to provide relief for bullied targets. The primary reason for the failure is that the threshold of “outrageous conduct” is rarely crossed in U.S. courts. That is, what you and I would consider over-the-top cruelty, thus outrageous, does not meet the U.S. legal standard of conduct beyond the bounds of civilized society. That translates to a license for any manager to do anything and courts consider their tactics within their allowed prerogative. As Yamada concluded IIED is inadequate because courts are too strict for plaintiffs while forgiving most ever transgression of bullies. [In Canada, the tort uses the "reasonable person" threshold. There it takes much less violence for conduct to be deemed outrageous.]

In a 2011 case, a young woman won a $41 million jury award for a combined IIED and sexual harassment case. But it was extremely severe. Even the jury had to admit her manager’s lewd conduct and sexual battery crossed the line. But that’s what it takes to win.

The other existing laws that pertain to bullying cases are state and federal civil rights statutes. We know from the WBI 2007 national survey that 1 in 5 bullying cases also have an illegal discrimination component. That is good for the plaintiff. By filing an EEOC or internal discrimination complaint, the employer will have to pay attention. Of course, complaining triggers a reflexive retaliation by employers. But that’s more good news for plaintiffs. There can now be a charge of retaliation. According to the EEOC, more cases are won by proving retaliation for filing a discrimination complaint than are won when the claim is that one of the seven protected categories was the actual reason for the mistreatment. A 2010 study of the efficacy of discrimination laws found that plaintiffs win in only 15% of cases, and the rate is declining.

The public (and many lawmakers, pundits, bloggers, and nearly everyone who is a target) misunderstands is that to be eligible to claim discrimination — sexual harassment, hostile work environment, racial discrimination, religious persecution — it is best when only the recipient/target is a member of protected status group based on race, gender, age, disability, etc. When the harasser/bully/perpetrator is also protected, it is problematic and may disqualify the plaintiff from filing. The majority of bullying is same gender, same race. Thus, bullying which is 80% of all harassment, is invisible in the eyes of the law. Only a very narrow slice of the population is ever eligible to claim discrimination. Always determine whether the perpetrator is similarly protected. That nullifies any protection for the target. It is a simple and erroneous statement to say that a hostile work environment is illegal in the U.S. Sad, but true.

Given the inadequacy of IIED and civil rights statutes to address workplace bullying, a problem of epidemic proportions in the U.S., there oughta be a law! That’s why we need the HWB. We need it despite whining protestations from corporate defense attorneys who point to IIED and civil rights laws as adequate — for employers, yes — for plaintiffs, protections are non-existent.

A Target’s Wishlist

We certainly wanted a law in the beginning of our involuntary involvement with workplace bullying back in 1995. When we started the organization that has become the Workplace Bullying Institute in mid-1997, we had learned the hard way that existing U.S. employment law was very narrowly defined and did not deserve to be called “protection.” David Yamada annexed his legal work with WBI and in 2001 gave us the first version of the HWB to take to the California legislature. Ruth Namie, Carrie Clark and I learned amateur lobbying the hard way but were able to get the largest state to introduce HWB for the first time in 2003. Now, there is a nationwide team of volunteer State Coordinators carrying the HWB to their state legislatures. For the technical content of the bill, we defer to law professor Yamada. We and the Coordinator team are the implementers.

When deep in the throes of emotional turmoil through no fault of their own, bullied targets demand justice. They deserve it. Naturally they turn to the law and courts to provide this. They want to sue. They want retributive justice — someone must be punished and held accountable. They want revenge. One late website author used to insist that all bullies were psychopaths. He never seemed to heal. To individuals subject to such constrained thinking and prone to emotional distortion, affirmative defenses for employers make the bill sound weak.

The HWB will become a civil law. The only method for restoring a plaintiff’s dignity and sense of justice is cash. This is not a bill to create a criminal law. There are only two in the world: (1) a new 2011 bill in the Australian state of Victoria, and (2) the French Social Modernisation Law. So, please know that people, however heinous, will not be going to jail after the HWB becomes law.

Targets want draconian laws to punish employers. And so might we at WBI. However, the process of making laws in the U.S. is through legislators who win their elective seats by raising money, most of it corporate money. There is little appetite for advancing laws for middle class working folks. In fact, after the 2010 election, there was a spate of anti-worker, anti-union laws passed simultaneously in several states. Current politicians who populate the state legislatures mostly hate or are indifferent to the plight of workers.

The lawmakers who are the exceptions to the new rules are the brave sponsors of the HWB. Their lives have been personally touched by destructive bullying. They come from all political parties. They lend credence to our statement that the HWB is non-partisan. However, in states with majorities in both chambers and the governorships where anti-worker laws passed, it is an uphill battle to simply get the HWB introduced.

This is the political world we have for the next several years. Abuse at work is serious. But so is self-destruction of the planet by governments’ failure to deal honestly with climate change, pollution and the effect of the destructive human imprint on the natural world. If lawmakers can’t address ways to ensure we have suitable air and water for our grandchildren, you can imagine how easily they dismiss the abuse of adults in the contemporary workplace. The business lobby’s clamoring for jobs through the elimination of basic regulations for employers overwhelms our counter message that employers should be mildly constrained so that work does not become a war zone for anyone.

We appreciate that some legal writers have considered passage “inevitable.” The momentum of the workplace bullying movement that we originated here in the U.S. is building as the term “workplace bullying” enjoys more mainstream acceptance and usage every year. Much work remains to be done and it will not stop when the first state makes HWB law. That will simply launch a new phase in the struggle.

A short final word about why we are pursuing state laws and not a national one. Each state has different workers compensation laws to which the HWB must conform. It would be nearly impossible to craft a national law that could accomplish that task. With a national law, there are also interstate commerce clauses that must be dealt with, further complicating the task. And finally, have you looked at Congress lately, both the paralyzed Senate and the wacky House? We have lobbied a bit in Washington, DC but with a different purpose than to propose a national law to complement federal civil rights statutes.

For those who think we should expand existing civil rights laws, think again. Those statutes are considered sacred by constituencies that benefit most from those laws. There is a dormant opposition to tinkering with those hard-won laws that could be awakened if we sought to supplement current protections in the civil rights codes. Modifying them in the reactionary political climate that has prevailed for the last 31 years in the U.S. seems to be a fool’s errand. We shall stick with our state-by-state campaign unless there is a major upheaval in national politics and a new progressive era is ushered in.

The Confluence of Movements

The Healthy Workplace Campaign certainly benefits from the Occupy movement that addresses income inequality. The protesters have made clear the unnatural and undemocratic disparity that is reflected where we go to work (if we have a job at all). That owners control the entire work environment and can callously discharge workers with no consequences when no union is present. The intra-organizational political disparities reflect the broader economic ones in society. Workplaces are microcosms of society.

In America’s private sector, 93% of workers have no union. The doctrine of “employment at will” prevails. It is that same negation of workers’ rights relative to those of the owners that fosters workplace cultures where bullying thrives. Employers continue to fire anyone daring to organize a unionization drive. Employer campaigns to discredit unions at meetings where they can mandate all-hands attendance seem to work. Many workers, despite unemployment at Great Depression levels, prefer to side with employers rather than with their colleagues to demand fairer treatment.

To improve workers’ lives, there must be attempts to chip away at employers’ unilateral control over workers. They won’t voluntarily yield or share power without pressure from employees working collaboratively and collectively.

In the absence of unions, and to enhance the safety of unionized workers, please help us pass the Healthy Workplace Bill. Do it to restore some fairness to the American workplace.

Gary Namie
National Director, Healthy Workplace Campaign
Nov. 22, 2011

###

An interview with Adam Cohen, Yale Law Professor, on CNN that provides a great tutorial on the HWB.

by Erika C. Collins, New York Law Journal, Oct. 24, 2011

The United States has had status-based harassment and discrimination laws in place for decades, well in advance of most other countries. Though the United States has taken several measures to protect those who are harassed in the workplace based on “protected categories,”(1) it has not introduced legislation to assist those who are “bullied” in the workplace, but do not have such a protected status on which to base a claim. Recent surveys indicate that a significant portion of U.S. workers may fall into this category; 35 percent of U.S. workers reported experiencing workplace bullying, the majority of which was same-gender harassment.(2)

Currently, there is no state or federal law to fill this gap in coverage. The first anti-bullying piece of legislation, the “Healthy Workplace Bill” (HWB), was introduced in California in 2003. Since then, 21 other states, including New York, have proposed bills based on the HWB, though none have yet been enacted. The New York State Legislature, however, is considering such a bill. A bill establishing “a civil cause of action for employees who are subjected to an abusive work environment” provides a remedy for victims of harassment that is not based on a protected category and holds employers civilly liable for maintaining abusive work environments.(3) If the bill is passed into law, New York will become the first state in the country to recognize a cause of action for workplace bullying, though several states have considered such legislation in the past.

Other countries have been more proactive in combating workplace bullying. In particular, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France and Japan have introduced new legislation or have interpreted existing legislation to address bullying in the workplace.(4) This article summarizes New York’s proposed bill. It also analyzes workplace bullying laws in place in Sweden, the UK and France as examples of treatment of workplace bullying outside the United States. Finally, this article provides recommendations to multinational employers that are faced with complying with developing bullying laws.

Healthy Workplace Bill

The New York State Legislature introduced an anti-bullying bill in 2010, which passed in the Senate,(5) but was put on hold in the Assembly. In early 2011, an identical bill was introduced in the New York State Assembly and Senate,(6) and is currently under consideration. Supporters of the proposed legislation are hopeful that New York will be the first state to pass it, prodding other states to follow its lead.(7)

The bill would amend the New York Labor Law by providing legal redress for employees who are subjected to an “abusive work environment,” which exists when an employee is “subjected to abusive conduct that is so severe that it causes physical or psychological harm.”(8) The bill defines “abusive conduct,” as “conduct, with malice, taken against an employee by an employer or another employee in the workplace, that a reasonable person would find to be hostile, offensive and unrelated to the employer’s legitimate business interests.”(9)

A single act will not constitute abusive conduct unless it is “especially severe or egregious,”(10) similar to the standard for hostile work environment claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.(11) Furthermore, the bill requires employees to notify their employers of the abusive conduct.(12) After receiving such notice, employers must eliminate the abusive conduct, and may not retaliate against individuals who participated in the complaint process.(13)

The bill does provide employers with two alternative affirmative defenses. First, an employer may have an affirmative defense against a claim if it can demonstrate that it exercised reasonable care to prevent and promptly correct the abusive conduct and the employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of the appropriate preventative or corrective opportunities that it provided.(14) This defense is not available if the abusive conduct culminated in an adverse employment decision with respect to the complaining employee (e.g., termination or demotion); however, the employer can assert an alternative defense that any such decision was consistent with the employer’s legitimate business interests.(15)

The remedies available under the bill include reinstatement, removal of the offending party from the complainant’s work environment, reimbursement for lost wages and medical expenses, compensation for emotional distress, punitive damages, and attorney’s fees.(16) However, in cases where there was no adverse employment decision, emotional distress damages are capped at $25,000 and punitive damages are not available.(17) As an additional safeguard against unjust enrichment, the bill precludes employees who have collected Workers’ Compensation benefits for conditions arising out of an abusive work environment from bringing a claim pursuant to the law for the same such conditions.(18)

Sweden’s Ordinance

In 1993, Sweden became the first country in the world to enact specific anti-bullying legislation. The Ordinance on Victimization at Work,(19) enacted as part of Sweden’s occupational safety and health laws, offers protection against “victimization,” which it defines as “recurrent reprehensible or distinctly negative actions which are directed against individual employees in an offensive manner and can result in those employees being placed outside the workplace community.”(20)

Unlike New York’s proposed law, the ordinance does not provide a private cause of action for aggrieved employees; instead, it imposes administrative obligations upon employers to prevent victimization, immediately intervene when such misconduct becomes apparent, and attempt to engage in a collaborative process to resolve conflicts.(21) Employers who fail to comply with these obligations may be fined and/or imprisoned for up to one year.(22)

United Kingdom Act

Like the United States, the United Kingdom has not enacted legislation specifically to combat workplace bullying. However, British courts have interpreted an existing anti-stalking law, the Protection from Harassment Act (23) (PHA), as providing redress for victims of workplace bullying.(24) The PHA prohibits individuals from pursuing a course of conduct that either amounts to harassment, or that they should know amounts to harassment.(25)

Courts have interpreted the statute’s vague definition of “harassment” as conduct: (i) occurring on at least two occasions, (ii) targeted at the claimant, (iii) calculated in an objective sense to cause distress, and (iv) that is objectively judged to be oppressive and unreasonable.(26) However, even if the complained of conduct constitutes harassment under this objective test, vicarious liability for the conduct is not automatic; employer liability must be “just and reasonable in the circumstances.”(27) Whether or not an employer has implemented a harassment policy and procedures is one factor courts may consider in determining whether the imposition of vicarious liability is reasonable.(28) This judicial consideration is similar to the first affirmative defense under New York’s proposed law, which is available to employers that take measures to prevent and promptly correct abusive conduct.

There also is a statutory affirmative defense similar to the “legitimate business interests” defense provided in the New York bill, which is available to defendants who can show that the complained of conduct was: (i) pursued to prevent or detect a crime; (ii) legally required; or (iii) reasonable under the circumstances.(29) The PHA provides for remedies similar to those available under the New York bill, including injunctive relief and compensatory and emotional distress damages.(30) Unlike the New York bill, however, there is no cap on the damages that courts may award aggrieved employees. Significantly, a court recently awarded a victim of workplace bullying a record-setting $1.6 million in damages under the PHA.(31)

France’s Law

In 2002, France enacted the Social Modernization Law, which introduced provisions to the French Labor Code that provide civil and criminal penalties for “moral” harassment.(32) The law sets a higher standard for actionable conduct than New York’s proposed legislation does by expressly providing that a single act, regardless of its severity, is not enough to constitute moral harassment.(33) Furthermore, the conduct must have the purpose or effect of degrading the employee’s right to dignity, affecting the employee’s mental or physical health, or compromising the employee’s career.(34) The law places an affirmative obligation on employers to take all necessary actions to prevent moral harassment,(35) and prohibits them from retaliating against employees who report moral harassment or who refuse to be victims of moral harassment.(36)

Labor tribunals have construed the Social Modernization Law as holding employers strictly liable for actionable conduct, even if they implemented measures to prevent moral harassment.(37) Thus, unlike New York’s proposed legislation, there are no affirmative defenses available to employers. The law also provides for the automatic nullification of any employment contract termination resulting from moral harassment.(38) Additionally, labor tribunals have ordered employers to pay damages for breach or “disloyal non-performance” of an employment contract based upon a failure to prevent moral harassment.(39)

Steps Employers Should Take

The practical implications of the global trend aimed at combating workplace bullying are very concerning for both U.S. and multinational employers. To safeguard against litigation and liability for potentially large damage awards, employers should consider taking the following steps:

• Broaden workplace policies to prohibit abusive conduct and retaliation against any employee raising a complaint.

• Include a requirement that employees report abusive conduct, and provide a specific and clear procedure that offers employees multiple avenues to complain about abuse.

• Train all managers on how to handle reports of abusive conduct, and the consequences of retaliation.

• Take immediate and effective action to rectify all retaliation complaints.

• Continually review and, if necessary, revise employment policies to ensure compliance with applicable workplace bullying laws and regulations.

###

Erika C. Collins is a partner at Paul Hastings in New York where she chairs the international employment law practice group. Mina Maisami, an associate with the firm, and Shaira Nanwani, a summer associate with the firm, assisted in writing and editing this article.

Endnotes:

1. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, race, color, religion, sex, and national origin are protected categories. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects workers who are 40 and older from discrimination, and the American with Disabilities Act protects disabled workers. Under the Genetic Information Predisposition Act of 2008, employers are prohibited from using information regarding someone’s genetic predisposition to disease in making employment decisions. Veteran status is also a protected category under the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act. Finally, many states also include sexual orientation as a protected category.

2. Results of the 2010 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey, WORKPLACE BULLYING INSTITUTE, http://www.workplacebullying.org/wbiresearch/2010-wbi-national-survey/ (last visited July 25, 2011).

3. S. 4258, 2011-2012 Reg. Sess. (NY); A. 4258. 2011-2012 Reg. Sess. (NY) See “History of the Healthy Workplace Campaign, HEALTHY WORKPLACE BILL, http://www.healthyworkplacebill.org/states.php (Oct. 4, 2011).

4. See Katherine Lippel, “The Law of Workplace Bullying: An International Overview,” 32 COMP. LAB. L. & POL’Y J. 1, 1 (2010); Jessica A. Clarke, “Beyond Equality? Against the Universal Turn in Workplace Protections,” 89 IND. L.J. 1219, 1259 (2011).

5. Sen. 1823 B, 2010 Sess. (N.Y. 2010).

6. Assemb. 4258, 2011 Sess. (N.Y. 2011); Sen. 4289, 2011 Sess. (N.Y. 2011).

7. See Tina Susman, “State Bills Against Workplace Bullying Gain Traction,” L.A. Times, March 18, 2011.

8. Sen. 4289 §761, 2011 Sess. (N.Y. 2011).

9. Id. (providing the following examples of abusive conduct: “repeated infliction of verbal abuse, such as the use of derogatory remarks, insults and epithets; verbal or physical conduct that a reasonable person would find threatening, intimidating or humiliating; or the gratuitous sabotage or undermining of an employee’s work performance”).

10. Id.

11. See David C. Yamada, “Workplace Bullying and American Employment Law: A Ten-Year Progress Report and Assessment,” 32 COMP. LAB. L. & POL’Y J. 251, 262 (2010) (describing the domestic interdisciplinary coverage of and responses to workplace bullying and discussing decision of the HWB author to base the standard on that of hostile work environment claims).

12. Sen. 4289 §761, 2011 Sess. (N.Y. 2011).

13. Id.

14. Id. §764. This affirmative defense is similar to the Title VII affirmative defense created by the Supreme Court in Burlington Indus. Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742 (2008) and Faragher v. Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775 (1998).

15. Id. (providing the following examples of legitimate business interests: “termination or demotion based on the plaintiff’s poor performance,” or a “reasonable investigation of potentially dangerous, illegal or unethical activity”).

16. Id. §766.

17. Id. See also Yamada, supra note 2, at 265 (stating that this safeguard “has the effect of discouraging extensive litigation and promoting quick resolution”).

18. Sen. 4289 §769, 2011 Sess. (N.Y. 2011).

19. SWEDISH NATIONAL BOARD OF OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH, VICTIMIZATION AT WORK, ORDINANCE (Arbetsmiljoverket [AFS] 1993-17) (Swed.).

20. Id. §1.

21. Id. §§4-6. The accompanying guidelines suggest that management set standards for good behavior by example and clearly communicate to employees that victimization in the workplace is unacceptable.

22. See Frank Lorho & Ulrich Hilp, Bullying at Work 15-23 (European Parliament Directorate-Gen. for Research, Working Paper SOCI 108 EN, 2001), available at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/workingpapers/soci/pdf/108 en.pdf; Helge Hoel & Stale Einarsen, “The Swedish Ordinance Against Victimization at Work: A Critical Assessment,” 32 COMP. LAB. L. & POL’Y J. 225, 240 (2011).

23. Protection from Harassment Act, 1997, c. 40, §1 (Eng.).

24. See Majrowski v. Guy’s & St. Thomas’s NHS Trust, [2005] EWCA (Civ) 251, ¶56 (Court of Appeal); Green v. DB Group Servs. (U.K.) Ltd., [2006] EWHC 1898 (Q.B.).

25. Protection from Harassment Act, 1997, c. 40, §1 (Eng.).

26. See Susan Harthill, “Bullying in the Workplace: Lessons From the United Kingdom,” 17 MINN. J. INTL L. 247, 285 (2008) (citing Green, [2006] EWHC 1898, ¶ 152).

27. Majrowski, [2005] EWCA (Civ) 251, ¶57.

28. Id. ¶59.

29. PHA §1(3).

30. Id. §3(2).

31. Green, [2006] EWHC 1898 (Q.B.).

32. C. TRAV. art. L. 122-49.

33. Id.

34. Id.

35. Id. art. L. 122-51. One measure that employers must take is preparing a written document displaying workplace rules, which includes a provision prohibiting moral harassment. Id. art. L. 122-34.

36. Id. art. L. 122-49.

37. See Loic Lerouge, “Moral Harassment in the Workplace: French Law and the European Perspectives,” 32 COMP. LAB. L. & POL’Y J. 109, 122-27 (2010) (analyzing moral harassment cases before French Labor Tribunals).

38. C. TRAV. art. L. 122-49.

39. Lerouge, supra note 31, at 123.

After Steve Jobs died last week, TNT aired the 1999 movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley.” While the made-for-TV drama highlights the late Apple co-founder’s many accomplishments, it also portrays him as a cruel, disparaging boss.

Various news media outlets have cast Jobs in a similar light. In July 2010, The Toronto Star ran a piece titled, “Jobs Is a Genius and a Jerk.” The year before, Broadway Books published “The Second Coming of Steve Jobs” in which author Alan Deutschman describes Jobs as “an abusive, egomaniacal boss fond of meting out public humiliations.”

There are also recent examples. An article on Gawker.com published after the tech guru’s death says Jobs bullied and manipulated employees. And Noah Wyle, who starred in “Pirates,” wrote a piece published last week on Forbes.com that tells of a meeting he had with Jobs and several Apple executives. “They all—I don’t want to say they live in fear of him—are certainly are subservient to his will and whim,” the actor wrote.

A spokesman for Apple declined to comment on Jobs and these accounts.

The accounts share a common theme: Even the most successful of entrepreneurs may be unable to avoid earning a reputation as a bad boss when such is the case.

Research suggests that bad bosses – the bullying kind, to be specific — are somewhat common. An estimated 53.5 million Americans – or 35% of the U.S. workforce — report being bullied at work, according to a 2010 study commissioned by the Workplace Bullying Institute, an employee-rights group in Bellingham, Wash., and conducted by polling firm Zogby International. The findings also show that 62% of bullies are men and 58% of targets are women.

The same Institute also reports that since 2003, 21 states have introduced healthy workplace bills aimed at curbing bullying. However, none has been passed into law.

via Bad Bosses Can’t Hide Behind Entrepreneurial Success – In Charge – WSJ.

A lawyer jokes that she “gets angry for a living.” In the midst of a particularly bad day at the office, a real estate agent vows to channel her anger into making that next sale.

Most of us would prefer a tenacious fighter on our side in a legal battle. And business owners probably wouldn’t mind a bit of passion in their sales force. But would we want that same “angry” lawyer or sales rep as a boss? Probably not. Yet plenty of people, particularly young men, view anger as an effective management tool.

“People care about their work so you’re going to have conflict and you’re going to have anger,” says Donald Gibson, a professor of management at Fairfield University.

Anger is positive about half the time, Gibson says. It can spur creativity and competitive zeal. Perhaps most importantly, it can expose unfair labor practices and flaws in products and procedures. At the same time, he warns, anger can undermine trust between coworkers or lead to overly cautious work practices.

“In many organizations there is an anger asymmetry,” Gibson says. “Supervisors can express anger, but workers can’t. Doctors can express anger, but nurses can’t. That’s a recipe for disaster.”

Anne Kreamer, author of “It’s Always Personal: Emotion in the New Workplace,” thinks the traditional view of anger as evidence of passion needs to change. “The culturally accepted notion that angry people are in control is false. Anger is a sign that someone has lost control,” Kreamer says. “Angry work environments don’t make people snap to and work well together. Persistently angry workplaces drive good people away.”

In my mid-20s I worked for a boss who was famous for his temper. He threw books across the room, and even chairs and staplers, when he got angry. If an employee gave him bad news, he was likely to explode — screaming and pounding his fist on her desk. At the time, his rage seemed like a humiliating secret his employees shared. But after leaving that job, I discovered many outside our office knew about the temper tantrums. My secret became my workplace war story and my ability to survive, a badge of honor.

The most effective way to avoid angry outbursts in the modern workplace, says Vicky Oliver, author of “Bad Bosses, Crazy Coworkers, and Other Office Idiots,” is to “up the etiquette quotient.”

“We work in a no-door, no-wall environment. We’re working longer hours than ever. We’re thrown together with people for eight, nine, 10 hours a day,” Oliver says. “So how do you respect people’s boundaries? How do you maintain a healthy emotional distance where there is no physical distance?”

Because conflicts are inevitable in the workplace, particularly in an economy where fewer employees are shouldering more work than ever, Oliver advocates the creation of buffer zones. Announce your presence when you approach someone else’s cubicle, and ask permission to enter. Such niceties can help create a more collegial, less angry atmosphere, especially if they are still observed during disagreements.

Another effective strategy to avoid office flare-ups is to create some emotional distance between you and your coworkers. Consider e-mail, an especially volatile source of workplace anger. If you receive a tersely worded e-mail and feel compelled to fire back a scathing reply, Oliver advises delaying your response as long as possible (without jeopardizing project deadlines, of course). Leave your desk, take a short walk, or go on an errand. If you simply cannot resist writing a biting e-mail retort, then write one, file it in your draft folder — and leave it there. Later, take a look at that angry draft and extract only the information that addresses the work issue, stripping out all the emotional language you possibly can.

“Reframe the conflict or issue as a problem to be solved,” Gibson says, “but that’s difficult when you’re in the throes of anger.”

n e-mail or in person, try to use the adrenaline rush that comes from angry exchanges as motivation to articulate your point of view in an assertive — never an aggressive — way. “If you lash out, no one will remember the source of the conflict, but everyone is going to remember your behavior,” Oliver says.

Keep in mind that people express work frustrations in a variety of ways — from tears, to cracking jokes you may feel are mean-spirited, to sudden expressions of rage. “When you think of the difference between effective and ineffective anger, a lot of it is in the intention,” Kreamer says. “Blaming and bullying anger are not effective.”

According to surveys conducted by the Workplace Bullying Institute (www.workplacebullying.org), one in six U.S. employees has been the target of bullying during his or her career. Bullying differs from other forms of workplace anger. “It’s repeated, it’s malicious, it’s intentional,” says Katherine Hermes of Connecticut Healthy Workplace Advocates. Often the target is isolated from other members of the team, does not receive information or resources needed to do their job, or is belittled in front of others.

Because bullies often target more than one person, you may find allies at work. But be careful, Oliver warns. Coworkers may see the opportunity to ally themselves with the bully by reporting what you’ve said against her. “It’s tempting to vent to your coworkers, but it’s always dangerous to play the gossip game. The gossip wheel tends to work against you,” Oliver says. “You have to remember that there are a variety of personalities in any given workplace, including opportunists.”

Instead, Oliver says, create a support network outside of work. If your workplace has an employee assistance program, consider taking advantage of its confidential services.

If these strategies fail, you’ll need to alert your HR department. Before you do, make sure you can demonstrate a documented pattern of abusive behavior. Emphasize how the bully’s behavior is affecting your productivity. Do not focus on how the behavior makes you feel uncomfortable or try to present an “It’s him or me!” scenario.

“HR may still look at you as a whistleblower, but sometimes the whistle has to be blown,” Oliver says. “The tide is turning on all bullying behavior. It’s easier to talk about it than it used to be.”

If all else fails, begin to work on an exit strategy, Kreamer says, because “chronic, caustic anger always has a price, and that price is almost always your well-being.”

Everyone has experienced a bad day at the office when people are yelling and screaming at each other in frustration. But, if one person is the target of constant verbal and emotional abuse, it can escalate into a troubling case of ‘workplace bullying.’

Many small business owners refuse to acknowledge workplace bullying, preferring to hope the antagonist will eventually stop picking on a targeted co-worker. But, if you do nothing, the situation usually worsens, creating serious health and emotional problems for the bullied worker—and financial stress for employers, according to experts in the field.

If business owners don’t deal with bullying at work, it could result in a violent act. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, about two million violent crimes occur at American workplaces every year.

“There’s a real bottom line reason for business owners to take this problem seriously,” said David Yamada, professor of law and director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. “If you are working in close quarters and things are tense and combative, it’s likely to affect everyone’s morale.”

An expert on workplace issues, Yamada authored the ‘Healthy Workplace’ bill, which has been introduced by legislators in 21 states. Currently, 16 versions of the bill—which aims to protect bullied workers from abusers, extending legal protections currently not available to them—are under review in 11 states. Most people think federal employment and discrimination laws protect workers from bullying, but they don’t, according to Yamada.

Being bullied at work makes life miserable. Experts say bullied workers suffer from anxiety, hypertension, depression and other stress-related illnesses. A 2010 Zogby study revealed that about 35 percent of all adult Americans have been bullied and 15 percent of the population has witnessed workplace bullying. The survey was authored by Dr. Gary Namie, Ph.D., and his wife Ruth.

Considered experts on workplace bullying, they have written extensively on the topic and consult with companies dealing with bullying issues. Their newest book, The Bully-free Workplace: Stop Jerks, Weasels and Snakes from Killing Your Organization, provides readers with an in-depth look at the problem and several strategies for dealing with workplace bullying.

“Bullying runs rampant in small businesses,” said Namie. “The owner wants to avoid conflict and doesn’t know what to do. They prefer to tell the abuser and the target, ‘you guys work this out.’”

Namie said he became interested in workplace bullying issues after his wife, Ruth, who is a psychologist, was bullied at work. “Our research shows 66 percent of women who are bullied at work lose their jobs,” said Gary Namie. “Forty-one percent quit, and 25 percent are fired.”

People bullied at work feel trapped—similar to someone suffering from domestic violence. It’s often worse for a bullied worker who feels he or she has to take the abuse because they really need the job, especially during this lingering economic slump.

How do you know if you have a bully in your midst?

“Bullying is a hostile, repeated behavior meant to make people feel badly,” said Carolyn Fedigan, a Boston-area human resources consultant who helps clients deal with bullying problems.

“I’ve dealt with a CEO who would regularly say to his secretary, ‘What, are you stupid?’”

Fedigan said some bullies take a more subtle approach. “They leave people out of communication loops, they spread gossip or single people out for the silent treatment,” she said.

No matter how distasteful it is, business owners can’t turn their backs on the problem. “There is a real financial cost to companies that let this toxic behavior continue, “ said Fedigan. “Bullied people take sick leaves, go out on disability and lose productivity.”

She said many business owners tolerate a bully if the person is a great salesperson or clients love them. “Sometimes the boss is scared of the bully,” she said. “They worry about the cost of turnover, of recruiting and training a new person.”

Business owners have to put their foot down and say, ‘We don’t accept this kind of behavior.” She said it’s important to have a written policy prohibiting workplace bullying. It’s also important to encourage your employees to report any inappropriate or bad behavior. “You have to have the kind of environment where employees can tell the boss what’s happening to them.”

Companies often hire Fedigan to counsel bullies. She works one on one with them, delving into why they are acting inappropriately towards a colleague. “Often, they have no idea they are a bully,” she said. “They think it’s an okay way to behave.”

Consider drafting an anti-bullying policy for your business that defines the problem and then:

Provides a procedure to report incidents.
Includes a ‘no retaliation’ provision.
Encourages employees to report incidents.
Informs employees that violations may result in discipline.

When push comes to shove, workplace bullies are costing the company money. And that’s a good focus when dealing with them.

As a species, it seems we’re doomed to interact with jerks.

It happens in high school, and we think, “Once I get to college, things will be different.”

Then it happens in college, and we think, “Once I get a job, people there will be more mature.”

Not so much. Jerks abound, and, as fate would have it, the workplace is as much a breeding ground for bullies as the playground.

While much has been done in recent years to address bullies in the schoolyard, the issue of bullying at work remains largely under the radar. In fact, because of a work culture that often rewards aggressiveness, bullies have a nasty tendency of succeeding at work.

“This is one of the great undiscussables in the American workplace because it seems if you haven’t experienced it, you’re likely to believe it doesn’t happen,” said Gary Namie, a social psychologist and co-founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute. “What we’re seeing is a lot of abusive conduct, but it’s accepted as routine in the American workplace.”

Last year, Namie commissioned the polling group Zogby International to survey U.S. workers. The research found that 35 percent of the country’s workforce has experienced bullying on the job, and another 15 percent has seen it happen.

The remaining 50 percent of respondents had neither seen nor experienced bullying, a statistic that Namie said makes it hard for some to relate to the problem. He calls it a “silent epidemic.”

“So often in the workplace the feeling is, ‘Hey, you’re an adult, handle it yourself,’” Namie said. “They sometimes even blame the victim. But you know what? We said that for domestic violence for a long, long time until they criminalized it. So people need to stop the silly rationalizations.”

To be clear, “workplace bullying” doesn’t apply to acts of violence.

“What separates bullying from workplace violence or harassment is the fact that the bullying is something that’s done on a continuous basis,” said Timothy Dimoff, founder of SACS Consulting & Investigative Services, an Ohio-based company that specializes in high-risk workplace and human resource issues. “It’s constant and repetitive; someone who’s using different means of harassment, whether it’s complaining about the person, spreading rumors, blaming them, encouraging others not to talk to the person. It’s more psychological and emotional abuse.”

Think about your workplace, and there’s a good chance you’ve seen this or dealt with it. In the most severe cases, a manager tries to sabotage an employee by taking credit for work or writing a negative performance review. More routinely, a co-worker or manager picks away at an employee, making cracks about them in front of other people, demeaning them even in subtle ways.

This behavior may seem routine in a world of snarkiness, but when it happens day in and day out, and when the targeted person feels unable to fix the situation, it can lead to serious physical and mental health problems. Consider how difficult it might be, particularly in this job market, for a victim to protest the way a manager is treating them.

“Many people nowadays feel really locked in,” Namie said. “Like there’s no escape route, and that just makes the situation worse.”

The fact is, some folks will find themselves in situations where the only way out is to quit. That’s obviously a worst-case scenario, but if a bully is making your life so miserable it’s affecting you physically and mentally, you’ve got to cut ties and take care of yourself.

Before that, however, there are steps you can take to try to put the bully in his or her place.

“They need to take it to their human resources person or their immediate supervisor,” Dimoff said. “If they don’t get any results, then they need to go to somebody higher. In the meantime, they need to document when these things happen, where they happen and what was said and done. If they don’t write it down, it’s hard to remember details, and things get distorted. When management sees an employee come in with this in writing, they react much more quickly and thoroughly to it.”

Namie suggests that the target look for ways to quantify the harm a bully is causing a company. How many people has the person driven away? How much work time is eaten up contending with problems relating to the bully?

“You want to be able to tell the executives that the bully is too expensive to keep; actually present the business argument that the bully is too expensive,” Namie said. “What can discredit the person who is the target is emotionality. The emotionality is scary to management. So you make a dispassionate argument.”

Of course, management is, or should be, responsible for creating an environment that repels bullies.

“The company needs to have policies and procedures against bullying and workplace violence, and they need to let those procedures be very well known to their management and employees,” Dimoff said. “Companies need to work on creating a more positive culture. In positive cultures, we don’t see the bullying. People work together and don’t resort to negative tools.”

Namie’s Workplace Bullying Institute is pushing a Healthy Workplace Bill, which is being considered in 11 states, that would crack down on office bullies and clearly define what it means to have an “abusive work environment.” You can learn more about the bill at healthyworkplacebIll.org.

A final point: If you think a bullying co-worker is trying to make you a target, be proactive.

Bullies, at the end of the day, are cowards. They feed off people who put up with their abuse. So the moment someone begins to pick at you, stand up to them. Let them know you won’t tolerate improper treatment.

The alternative is to let it go, and that’s almost guaranteed to not end well.

From the Chicago Tribune

The Drs. Namie began the first and only U.S. research, education, advocacy and consulting organization — the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI, workplacebullying.org) now in Bellingham, Washington. Their current books areThe Bullying-Free Workplace (2011, Wiley) for employers and The Bully At Work (2009, Sourcebooks) for bullied individuals. WBI regularly conducts research, including the scientific 2010 & 2007 U.S. Workplace Bullying Surveys and online large sample studies. As the go-to experts, WBI has been featured on U.S. and Canadian network and local TV, national and local newspapers, business magazines and radio, with nearly 1,000 interviews.

Two important additional types of work the Namies undertake are (1) to direct the national campaign to enact the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill in states (healthyworkplacebill.org), and (2) The Work Doctor® (workdoctor.com) the Namies’ firm that originated the field of workplace bullying consulting for employers in 1998. Gary was the expert witness in the nation’s first ”bullying trial” in Indiana with the verdict upheld by the state Supreme Court.

Prior to their 24/7/365 immersion in workplace bullying, Gary’s university teaching in psychology and management spanned 20 years. Ruth had counseled substance abusers. Both were corporate directors of organizational development and training – he in healthcare, she in the hotel industry.

The Namies’ professional preparation, consulting experience, and unwavering focus on workplace bullying give them an unrivaled, comprehensive perspective of the phenomenon that they introduced to the U.S.

* * *

How do you define “workplace bullying”? What isn’t it?

It is a pattern of repeated personalized attacks by one or more people against a targeted (our preferred term for the victimized) employee. It’s always repeated, chronic. The resultant health harm derives from the repeated exposure stressful work conditions completely out of the target’s control.

Bullying takes the form of verbal abuse, behaviors (physical and nonverbal gestures, space invasions & paralinguistic cues (interruptions, loud hostile volume, speech rate)) that are threatening, intimidating, or humiliating, and work interference or sabotage that prevents work from actually getting done.

We often refer to it as a systematic campaign of interpersonal destruction launched by bullies against targets who neither invited nor deserved the assaults.

We speak of abusive conduct at work as bullying. Contrast it with the less intense and less harmful negative actions — incivility and disrespect. These euphemisms are favorites of American employers who want to act like they are addressing bullying. Bullying is not rudeness or simply inappropriateness.

We frame bullying as a form of violence, albeit non-physical and sub-lethal (NIOSH agrees with this characterization).

The most important distinction to draw is with conflict. Conflict is a clash of intellectual differences between two equal-powered parties that can be resolved using time-tested strategies. Mediation is the preferred tool. But research and our experience find that mediation applied to serious bullying only compromises the previously compromised target. They begin the process as relatively powerless (the vast majority (72%) of incidents are perpetrated by bosses who outrank their targets). The so-called “middle ground” can never benefit, or ensure safety for, the target. To ask a bullied target to further yield to the bully is unconscionable.

The closest phenomenon analogous to workplace bullying is domestic violence. The interplay between abuser and abused victim mirrors the bully-target interaction. Bouts of explosive violence are followed by pseudo-nurturant interludes before a resumption of the violence. Witnesses do not interfere out of fear. Society (akin to the employing organization) remained aloof until pressure mounted to outlaw the practice. Prior to its proscription, apologists rationalized doing nothing because they felt it “inappropriate” to get involved in private family matters.

A final reason to compare bullying to domestic violence is that mediation is an inappropriate tool to stop it. There is no acceptable middle ground in abusive relationships — not in domestic violence and not in workplace bullying.

When and why did you two begin to work together?

That was in 1985. We started The Work Doctor consulting firm while Gary was teaching overseas for the University of Southern California. His graduate management students were military officers who sought guidance on real world organizational problems. So, we started the family-run consulting company, aptly named by Ruth. She and he worked together from the beginning. From its inception until 1998 Work Doctor provided a wide variety of consulting solutions, including lots of fun topics (e.g., strategy sessions at California beach towns with CEOs). However, when bullying so intensely interrupted normal life for us, we knew at the start what employers needed to do to correct and prevent workplace bullying. Work Doctor has focused exclusively on bullying in organizations since then. Services include professional speeches (done by Gary and son Sean who just joined the company), training on-site for caring employers, and, of course, the systemic solution we devised to stop bullying — Blueprint. Of course, market awareness has lagged in the U.S.

We married in 1983. Ruth’s separate career began after her graduate training in clinical psychology was completed in 1992. She was bullied in 1995. The situation resolved in 1996 and by mid-1997, we decided that to import workplace bullying from Britain was our destiny. So we started what became WBI.

By then had either or both of you already become especially interested in the problems that bullies create in the workplace?

We began collecting, at the Work Doctor website, tales of workplace mistreatment — the dark side of the world of work — thanks to inspiration from our friend Daniel Levine, host of the website and author of the book with the same title — Disgruntled! But it had not yet personally invaded our family in the early 1990′s. We understood the phenomenon only slightly and from the safe distance enjoyed by consultants. We had empathy for targets, but not intimate knowledge of its impact. We probably also confused serious abusive bullying with unethical or uncivil conduct (we were naive way back then).

Please explain when and why the Workplace Bullying Institute was founded.

Ruth’s pre- and post-doctoral career was spent in clinics treating individuals with chemical dependency problems. She was an effective clinician. She moved seamlessly across locations within a large HMO and enjoyed respect from her supervisors. In 1995, she voluntarily transferred to a clinic that allowed her to treat families and end the substance abuse specialty. Oops. She suddenly met the boss from hell, a woman clinical psychologist named Sheila. The demise of her happy career followed the predictable stages we have come to document over the years.

Like all targeted individuals and their caring partners, we did not know what to call the irrational thunderbolt that struck Ruth without invitation or deservedness. Ruth called it harassment as per HR instructions. However, we learned the legal lesson that most bullied targets learn — when the harassment is same gender or same race, it is legal and considered unactionable by HR folks who lack policies with teeth when no law exists to compel action. We hired and fired a lawyer and learned the first of many legal lessons.

After an 18-month recovery period, we surfaced emotionally and searched for the name for Ruth’s wretched experience. We found that the Brits called it workplace bullying; the Scandinavians called it mobbing. We assumed that given America’s size there must be a movement led by an organization we could support and help. In June 1997, there was none. So, we decided at that point, while living in the San Francisco suburb of Benicia, to start the Campaign Against Workplace Bullying.

The modest beginning was represented as a part of The Work Doctor website. We began writing about every aspect of bullying that we could find. We relied heavily on the European and Canadian research that had a decade head start on Americans.

The Campaign got its own website on Jan. 3, 1998 (bullybusters.org). It had grown to be rather encyclopedic. After all Gary was an academic (still teaching in No. California to pay the rent) and determined to teach. Ruth saw the need to reach out to people harmed like she had been. We established a toll-free crisis line for those seeking validation and advice. We answered the number day and night weekdays and weekends. It consumed us, both emotionally and financially. However, before we abandoned the goal of giving advice at our expense, Ruth and Gary had heard over 6.000 stories, most told in one-hour blocks.

Later, we would become known for our empirical quantitative research, but those first eight years when we lived on the phone with others we gleaned rich anecdotal information that no survey could yield. We had heard every conceivable variation of bullying that exists.

Oprah called and we worked for seven weeks to develop a November (1998) show for her. We were abruptly cut out of the show itself when Gary had the audacity to recognize the stupid idea a show producer had — to “rehabilitate a bully on stage” — and to call it just that. It’s still a stupid idea that TV shows still try to plug. Telling Dr. Phil “no” was easier after insulting the Oprah people back in the beginning. But sacrificing the dignity of the movement that stands against abuse is too great a price to pay for TV titillation.

Because of a pending Oprah appearance, we hurriedly wrote and published our first book — BullyProof Yourself At Work. We sold over 5,000 copies and quickly tired of buying bubble wrap in 6-foot diameter rolls and stuffing envelopes. In 2000, we attended the booksellers’ convention, BEA, and the publisher Sourcebooks discovered us and bought the book that became The Bully At Work. Its second edition was released in 2009.

Our first national press coverage came from the Washington Post, then USA Today as a special 1998 Labor Day feature. The Campaign first inhabited a kitchen nook, then a bedroom, finally overwhelming both the living and dining rooms. Callers flocked to us. We recruited volunteers to help with logistics and helping us respond to the hundreds of e-mail requests for confirmation that the sender was not crazy. Ruth ran a local support group and, under supervision, offered counseling to bullied clients.

We moved from Benicia, California to Bellingham, Washington in late 2001 to replenish family funds used for the Campaign. Gary again taught university for two more years, capping a 21-year career. For Western Washington University, he designed and taught the first U.S. college course on bullying — Psychological Violence At Work.

In Bellingham, the Campaign became the Workplace Bullying Institute because a team of volunteer research students made possible more surveys. Institutionalizing the name made it seem more academic. We consider the production and dissemination of research by WBI and others the activity that distinguishes us in the field. In America, WBI remains the first and only organization that integrates all aspects of workplace bullying: self-help advice for individuals, personal coaching, research, public education, union assistance, training for professionals, employer consulting, and legislative advocacy.

To what extent (if any) has its original mission changed?

The scope of our work grew from a narrow focus on bullied targets and their families to include a national campaign to enact state laws prohibiting malicious, health-harming abusive conduct at work (a.k.a. workplace bullying), and an extensive repertoire of consulting services for employers. Listening to, and advising, individuals in the throes of being bullied evolved to professional coaching (for a low fee) by a licensed counselor on staff, Jessi Brown. The public education work has expanded to include contributions of research — by WBI and by others — to inform all work. WBI, since 2008, trains professionals in its Workplace Bullying University, to extend the message beyond what a small group like WBI can achieve by itself. WBI also works extensively with unions striving to help their members restore lost power from bullying. In 2011, we are offering the first-ever union-only WB University. And in an oblique way, Gary educates courts and arbitrators by providing expert witness services in lawsuits.

The three domains of our work are related as follows. Individual targets are powerless to stop bullying by themselves and should not be held personally responsible to do so, regardless of how much knowledge they possess. Mighty organizational forces are assembled to block corrective action. To apply the ubiquitous “personal responsibility” mantra to bullied individuals is to blame victims for their fate, as if they wished upon themselves severe abuse.

Employers are responsible for the work environment — bullying or its absence. So, while we currently serve employers (and unions), voluntary steps are typically modest and ineffective without being driven by the CEO. That has happened but is rare since 1998 when we focused exclusively on bullying consulting (workdoctor.com). In 2009, we launched the nation’s first anti-bullying program for adults in schools (Sioux City, Iowa, Community Schools), melding protections for children as well as for adults (workplacebullyinginschools.com).

Abdication of responsibility by employers to address bullying within their organizations is not currently punishable by law, and is even perceived as an indication of an employer’s command over its workforce to deny relief from abusive supervisors and managers. Nearly all employers choose to not give workers additional rights or protections in the U.S. unless and until compelled by laws to do so. Laws are the motivation.

Thus we began legislative advocacy in 2001. It led to the introduction in 2003 in California of the first of over 70 versions of the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill. The HWB has been introduced in 21 states since. Suffolk University Law School professor David Yamada contacted the Campaign in 1999. At the time, he was writing the seminal treatise on the need for workplace bullying laws (published in the Georgetown Law Journal in March, 2000). He shared the goals of what was to become WBI and offered to write language for the requisite legislation. It is called the Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB, healthyworkplacebill.org). Ruth and I took it to Sacramento, and the journey began.

We learned how to lobby state lawmakers the old fashioned way — without money. In the years since, we perfected and teach the methodology to citizen advocates who volunteer as State Coordinators in the Healthy Workplace Campaign. Currently, we have Coordinators in 36 states. We are a focused and successful group numbering 70 that challenges the Chambers of Commerce and other highly compensated business lobbying groups in each state. Our small but powerful team has 16 concurrent versions of the HWB active in 11 states in 2011. In 2010, both the Illinois and New York state Senates passed versions of the HWB, respectively. According to a 2011 New York Law Journal article, passage of the HWB seems inevitable. We believe this to be true, but cannot predict when or where. No state has yet passed the HWB.

Enactment of state laws will capture the attention of employers. The message will spread. Employers will eventually have to treat workplace bullying as seriously as they currently consider illegal forms of discrimination. Under threat of litigation, employers will create, and be compelled to enforce, policies specifically prohibiting bullying as we define it. In this way, and only in this way, will the millions of Americans afflicted by bullying at work be believed and protected.

Our enlarged mission now incorporates this tautological relationship: laws lead to employer actions that lead to protections for bullied workers that lead to diminishing (if not eradicating) workplace bullying.

Why has relatively little research been completed – at least until recently — on bullying in the workplace, given the nature and extent of its destructive and expensive impact?

The first English-language research journal article by Heinz Leymann, founder of the international movement, appeared in 1990. Leymann called the phenomenon mobbing instead of bullying. In 1996, a special Workplace Bullying edition of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, collected papers by Leymann, Norwegians, Germans and others. Bullying was a mainstream academic topic by then. The Bergen (Norway) Bullying Research Group, led by psychologist Staale Einarsen, produces more studies than any other single university or group. Norwegian transplant Helge Hoel completed his doctorate in England and from the University of Manchester is quite prolific. European researchers began to hold small biannual meetings to share new findings back in 1998. That group became the International Association on Workplace Bullying & Harassment. The group by self-definition remains a scholarly group. It holds its 8th meeting in 2012 in Copenhagen.

Laws followed research. The first law is Sweden’s, enacted in 1994. All Scandinavian countries have national anti-mobbing/bullying laws.

Reporter-turned-activist Andrea Adams in the UK launched the movement with her 1992 book, Bullying At Work. She defined the term we borrowed at WBI. Her legacy was extended after her death in 1995 by the Andrea Adams Trust, which closed its doors in 2010. UK unions are fierce anti-bullying advocates. The huge federal public sector union, UNISON, commissioned one of the first UK surveys on bullying done by Charlotte Rayner in 1998. Rayner has been a prolific researcher since. At universities throughout the UK and Ireland, doctorates were awarded in workplace bullying. This leads to a substantial body of peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Australians joined in 1994 with the staging of a conference in Queensland. Laws in various states followed culminating in June 2011 with the passage of a law in Victoria criminalizing bullying. It is only the second in the world to do so, but is the more prominent piece of legislation.

American researchers Loraleigh Keashly at Detroit’s Wayne State (a Canadian by birth) wrote a 1998 review of the literature about bullying, calling it emotional abuse at work. Subsequently, she published results of a Michigan scientific survey that stood as the best estimate of bullying’s prevalence in the U.S. (1 in 6 workers) until the WBI national surveys years later. She often teams with SUNY, New Paltz social psychologist Joel Neuman who applies his knowledge of aggression to the workplace and to bullying. In 2005, NIOSH convened a meeting of workplace bullying researchers. Only a handful of Americans were dedicated to researching the topic back then.

To answer your question about the apparent invisibility of research requires us to contrast the burgeoning international scientific literature with public awareness of research being conducted. Careers of academics depend on publishing articles in peer-reviewed journals. Journal readership numbers in the hundreds, and then only among others competing to publish in the same field. Rarely are articles translated for public consumption. At WBI, we are proud of translating and disseminating significant, but obscure, findings into useable information for the public. We feature such research in our training for professionals and at the website.

The other limitation of research is that it necessarily relies on the perspective of the targeted person. Thus, they are the ones who are researched heavily. Impact on their health, their perceptions of the bullies’ motives, leadership styles of managers involved, etc. The first studies of bullies’ perceptions come from Australia in 2011 where violators of employers’ law-dictated policies have been identified. To date, only their opinions about the injustice of the system that held them accountable for their behavior have been queried.

What are among the most common misconceptions about bullying in the workplace?

Misconceptions by executives: it doesn’t happen here and my trusted and accused colleagues are not capable of being abusive as alleged. Some executives genuinely believe these myths. The national statistics refute the first myth. Clearly the prevalence of bullying across all industries shows that it does happen nearly everywhere. The reason for disbelieving the subordinate who dares to accuse the manager is that that manager used years of ingratiation (butt-kissing) to curry favor with the executive so that accusers are not believed when they come forward with reports of bullying.

Misconceptions by the public: bad things happen to those who deserve it, so when people are bullied, they must have done something to bring the consequences upon themselves. This blame the victim rationalization allows the one believing it to feel protected against future personal harm. Of course, if they have the misfortune (not of their own doing) to be assigned to work with a predatory, toxic bully, they will learn firsthand that it is the bully who chose them, the method of torment, the timing of assaults, and how to convince teammates to betray the target. The target is not responsible for her or his fate any more than a battered spouse.

Misconception by HR-type workplace “experts”: targets are responsible, they actually owe it to themselves, to confront their bully with snappy comeback lines that will make her or him stop. What a joke! And how cruel to add this twist to the myth of “deserving or provocative victim.” By definition, a target is an individual who cannot defend him- or herself when subjected to a surprise character assassination. In other words, if she could have bounced the bully, she would have.

Misconception by workers: all harassment and a hostile workplace are illegal for everyone and HR will ride to the employee’s rescue when the call for help is made. Unfortunately, this is a costly myth. Only in very narrowly defined circumstances where the target is a member of a protected status group (on the basis of gender, race, religion, disability, etc.) and the perpetrator is not similarly protected do federal and state anti-discrimination laws apply. Hard to understand because the details require nuanced public education that does not exist. After a person is bullied, the legal lesson is learned. Part of WBI’s educational mission is to alert employees that most workers have no such legal protection.

Misconception (older and less frequently heard now): bullying happens in blue collar workplaces only to non-supervisors. According to the WBI 2007 U.S. Survey, 55% of targets are not supervisors, but 35% of all targets are managers — first-line supervisors, middle managers and non-executive managers aggregated. Managers are sandwiched between org layers that provide ample opportunities for bullies to emerge. Don’t forget, according to the national WBI surveys, 10% of bullies are subordinates who bully up the ladder.

Do those who are bullies in the workplace tend to be bullies at home and in the community, also?

The worst of the worst are abusers in every domain of their lives — in restaurants, when driving, at work, in church, at home. We cannot know the proportion, but we assume it is small. In worst cases, the person might actually be a psychopath (be diagnosable with an antisocial personality disorder). Robert Hare, the psychopath expert estimates that 1 in 100 executives are psychopaths. They would be excessively controlling and intimidating at home as well as at work.

However, to account for the 35% of adult Americans who have been bullied at work, another factor must be operating. Our preferred explanation subordinates personality as the prime causal factor in favor of powerful work environment cues that suggest to anyone paying attention that aggression is the key to higher status and advancement. When those are the operating rules, regardless of some lofty mission-vision-values language proclaiming that all individuals are respected, it only takes an astute observer willing to test the system to understand bullying. That is, a person who is kind, generous and wonderful outside of work can be transformed, with or without awareness, into a viper and predator at work. When asked why, the answer would be that certain conduct is expected of them at work and they are complying with that expectation. They would be saying that they were only doing what others had been doing all along, and they would be correct.

To what extent (if any) does confronting a bully in the workplace make it much less likely that the bully will be a bully elsewhere? Please explain.

Make no mistake. Bullies are confronted, just not as frequently by targets as they are confronted by bullyproof people. The confrontation conveys clearly to the bully that tormenting those who repel initial attacks will not deliver enough satisfaction to justify the effort required. Those people will not be targeted again.

Ironically, when a bully’s aggression is countered with equal or greater aggression, the respondent is often befriended, and, at the least, respected.

But bullies do renew their attempts to dominate others until they find a target who does not fight back immediately. With a target the benefit/effort ratio is high and the toxic relationship begins.

When coping with a bully, are group efforts much more effective than an individual’s efforts are? If so, why? If not, why not?

Theoretically, group interventions are the most successful. However, we know from studies, our and others, this is a too rare event. In a 2009 online survey, targets reported a joint confrontation in less than 1% of cases.

We could write an entire book describing the many ways coworkers fail their targeted colleagues. The despicable actions range from ostracism to estrangement to abandonment to siding completely with the bully. Many social psychological theories explain why, but the factor in common to all reasons is coworker fear. Fear of retaliation, fear of being the lone person to help, fear of being the next target for the bully.

When coworkers do nothing to help, it is imperative that the employer do something. We discussed elsewhere how dismal is the record of employer intervention, too.

In a way, our legislative advocacy is a way to mobilize the largest group possible – society – to declare the unacceptability of workplace bullying and to demand relief be given to those who request it.

Now please shift your attention to the book. When and why did you decide to write it…and write it together?

We have had the employer book outline on the shelf for years since we started WBI. There was no market for it. American employers showed little to no interest until recently. Corporate employment attorneys started writing about the pending success of our legislative campaign, warning employers to stop bullying voluntarily in preparation for the new law.

Since we started the national movement, drive the legislative campaign and originated the workplace bullying consulting field, we agreed to write the book when Wiley called saying that the market may be sufficiently mature for our employer-specific message.

To what extent (if any) does the book in final form differ from what you originally envisioned?

The Bully-Free Workplace is a business book written for managers and organizational leaders.

Wiley editors did an expert job of contrasting the goals for this reading audience with the business professionals who attend our 3-day immersive training on workplace bullying. For the latter group, we devote much attention to the science and theories that shed light on the phenomenon. The brief book cannot cover so much material without losing the audience. This was a lesson we had to learn.

So, we wrote the book in our most direct consulting voice. What should managers do? We tell them. What should executives do? We tell them. What problems arise when you engage in the wrong activities at the wrong time? We’ve been there and we tell them.

It’s not a coddling and comforting voice to put in an executive’s ear, but given their pay grade, they should be able to handle truths about bullying in order to be best informed. If they don’t care about long-term sustainability of their organization and retaining the most talented people who ensure that future, they should not be executives.

Thanks to our book, employers can no longer say they want to do something about bullying but don’t know where or how to start. We tell them.

Are there bully apologists? If so, what specifically is their rationale for defending/justifying bullies?

Yes. Bully apologists defend heinous actions by perpetrators based on one or more of the following reasons:

• He’s no bully, he’s following my orders (I see myself in the mirror when I see him)

• His personality may be grating to some, but they have to learn to live with him as he is. (“I’m as afraid of him as others are, just keep your distance and maybe he will ignore you

• A little bullying is a good motivational tool (learning theory in reverse)

• People can’t handle criticism, he (the bully) is simply trying to make the employees better workers (workers are thin-skinned, bullies build character)

• He (the bully) needs to be left alone to manage in ways tailored to the workers only he knows how to manage (the unlimited managerial prerogative models

In the book, you observe, “Trying to change bullies is a fool’s errand.” Please explain.

There is little hope that another person will ever alter another person’s personality. By definition, personality is stable across most situations. People marry with the foolish notion that they will change their partner. They leave the relationship disappointed.

Rather than change bullies – as the expensive and wasteful option of sending them to anger management or communication skills training implies – the more realistic goal is to simply constrain their behavior when they are in the workplace. That can be done with new rules, strictly enforced, and constant monitoring.

The behaviors change and how they act outside the workplace need not concern the employer. (Pity the spouses, pets, children, and restaurant waitpersons who run afoul of them daily.)

What are the dominant characteristics of a workplace culture in which there is little (if any) bullying?

A non-bullying workplace is one clearly free of abuse. Workers do not dread the possibility because if it happens, it is squashed immediately and the perpetrator is somehow branded anti-social and unacceptable. A fear-free place is the normal expectation of most workers new to any organization. When bullying surfaces, it always surprises people.

Some characteristics of a respectful workplace (a higher standard than the mere absence of abuse)

• Personally confident, curious, truth-seeking leaders

• Established channels of communication to leaders from staff that are trusted and used by workers without fear of reprisal

• Sick day and off-work policies that reflect an inherent trust of workers (not designed with cheaters in mind)

• Few, if any, secrecy mandates (e.g., compensation)

• Small CEO pay to lowest paid worker ratio

How specifically can bullying “kill” an organization?

We know the word “kill” sounds strong and hyperbolic, but right from the beginning of the movement, Heinz Leymann referred to employee death as the ultimate outcome from repeated mistreatment. Death comes from the onset of stress-related diseases traceable to the unremitting exposure to stress that bullying creates. And death can be by disease or suicide. Those are the literal ways that bullying kills.

It also undermines (kills) profitability, productivity, morale, team cohesion, employee trust and loyalty, and perceived effectiveness of leadership. All of these lead to sabotage, theft, sharing the flaws with external groups, and a tarnished reputation for the employer as one of the “worst places to work.”

Finally, bullying leads to the death of the organization’s vitality and ability to innovate and compete because the culture is understood by those on the inside as one that pits workers against their peers. There is no integrity, an ethical collapse, rendering employee engagement in any bold initiative necessary to keep the company solvent impossible.

Executive calls to purposeful action are met with sullen, disheartened, cynical employees.

Prior to what you characterize as an “epidemic” of bullying, are their any early-warning signs? Please explain.

The “red flags” missed by most organizations include:

• Not believing bullied individuals when they report the misconduct (disbelief from either the descriptions that sound too outrageous to be true or defensiveness of the first responders eager to protect the bullies)

• Simultaneously believing the alleged bully’s dismissal of the accusation as frivolous (who would confess to doing it?)

• Mislabeling bullying, aka psychological violence, as a simple “personality clash” and therefore not worthy of the organization’s attention

• mounting financial losses from lawsuits against the same few individuals who are inexplicably retained and never questioned

• C-suite mindguards who believe their role to be to block bad news flowing upward to executives

• A culture that prizes quiet (the absence of reports about potential interpersonal troubles) and considers conflict abhorrent, to be avoided at all costs (delusion accomplishes this goal)

What are the essential components of the “model of preventable causes of bullying” that you discuss in Chapter 8?

We agree that bullies bully because they can. Employers make it possible and some exploit the opportunities. It’s also true that personality has to be at least a small factor because not everyone sees the chances to hurt someone else.

However, our model states that bullying is primarily dependent on organizational learning. Bullies are excellent learners about, and interpreters of, cues in the work environment that signal openings to harm others. When there are situations in which others can be obliterated and one’s personal career advanced (a zero-sum competitive opportunity), it is because the employer has made the competition possible. (In Jack Welch’s world, the competition is by deliberate design in a twisted social Darwinistic way.)

When exploitation opportunities surface, only a few people willing to exploit need exist. With sufficient numbers of employees, a couple of Machiavellian types are bound to exist. Additionally, there must exist a pool of employees to serve as prey for the predators. In some fields (education and healthcare), the pool is vast. In workplaces where people with a pro-social orientation can be found in abundance, targeting is an easy task for bullies.

Third, the employer’s response to bullying when detected or reported is critical. If the actions are frowned upon and stopped, bullying can be suppressed. If bullying is rewarded, explicitly with promotions or recognition or implicitly by being treated with indifference or denial, bullying thrives. It’s simple learning theory in operation. Rewards reinforce and strengthen the likelihood of repeated actions, even in the case of negative conduct like bullying.

Thus, it is the employer’s responsibility to alter conditions under its control. Employers can stop deliberate zero-sum gamesmanship and even stop inadvertent destructive interpersonal strategizing with careful planning. Secondly, employers can shift the response to bullying from positive to negative in order to extinguish the undesirable conduct.

Bullying cannot continue unless employers want it to continue. If employers want to stop it, they can. And it would stop nearly instantly. Bullying is bringing value to employers; it continues unabated.

When contending with bullying, what are the specific leadership responsibilities, not only in the C-suite but at all other levels and in all other areas within the given organization?

Great leaders know that fostering trust among those purported to be led is critical. Leadership is earned, bestowed by the followers, not dictated or automatically granted to a position holder in the org chart. With respect to bullying, leaders and managers must have a modicum of the following abilities:

• Self-awareness: the ability to accurately read how others respond to them and be realistic about others’ perceptions

• Sufficient emotional maturity to allow that personal flaws do not preclude effectiveness in all tasks (a healthy, resilient ego vs. narcissism)

• Insight turned inward to recognize if they are bullies themselves

• An insistence on being told truths, however negative, by those who surround them – be explicit in your instructions and demonstrate that you can handle the truth when delivered

• Relationship-building with peers so that when others are caught being abusive, you can confront them safely, and in private, to compel them to change because unfettered abusive conduct shapes the workplace culture

• Empathy toward individuals who provide evidence of unconscionable psychological violence directed at them

• Desire to include the impact on employees’ lives and health of business decisions as a serious component of routine processes

By what process should bullying be addressed?

Bullying is rampant partly because nearly everyone is afraid to confront strong-willed, blustering bullies. Choosing to see bullying as the result of a few “bad seeds,” misleads leaders to personalize both the problem and solution. They mistakenly dive into the pointless task of personality re-engineering. It is a band-aid, short-term illusionary fix. Bullying recurs.

Relying on our explanatory model, leaders are guided to solutions that are impersonal. They apply to any organization and any bully, regardless of rank, personal abrasiveness or personality. Our Blueprint to Prevent and Correct Workplace Bullying does not ask executives to betray friends. The system, when in place, snares offenders. The system compels executives to act, rather than relying on personal motivation.

The systemic approach is not rocket science. In many ways it mirrors steps currently taken to address illegal discrimination. We do add our special variations to account for differences between bullying (legal, status-blind harassment) and illegal harassment.

1. Measure baseline prevalence. It stuns us how few clients actually want to know the starting rate prior to taking steps to reduce bullying. The fear of this metric runs counter to businesses’ obsession with tracking relevant data.

2. Create an explicit bullying prohibition policy. The ideal process is completed by a cross-disciplinary, cross-rank writing group assembled especially for this task. The group writes the policy, integrates it with existing ones, creates both informal and formal complaint and enforcement procedures, and, most important, designates a team of employees to be trained as peer experts in workplace bullying at a later time.

3. Train the Expert Peers Team. We find that disembodied policies that are introduced to employees once or twice are not inculcated into the company. Bullying generates self-doubt and personal uncertainty. Individuals need to be able to seek help without fear of repercussions. Peer team members provide the valuable services to colleagues of clarification of the experience, validation of their personhood, and information about how to resolve the problem given the new policy and systems put into place. Team members are volunteers. Teams decide which services they agree to provide.

4. Educate everyone. Peer Teams can provide the training. This is the classic program rollout.

5. Integrate the anti-bullying initiative with management training, performance evaluation, employee orientation, and staff re-training each year.

6. Ensure policy compliance. Hold accountable everyone, at all levels, for any misconduct. Skeptical employees will gauge the success or failure of the program based on the credibility of the first “trial.” If it is perceived as unfair or fraught with interference, the program could be untracked.

7. Continuity is guaranteed with a fully-functioning Expert Peers Team and endorsement by the C-suite.

Morris: To what extent must those involved receive training to prepare for response initiatives and whatever resistance they may encounter?

The primary training is for Expert Peer Team members. They need to become internal resources for all employees on the topic of workplace bullying and the organization’s new policy and enforcement procedures.

They are the first responders. Conversations with them constitute the first response that is an informal, non-punitive step towards resolution. They are trained in intervention and resolution alternatives.

Some become trainers. Some become personal coaches. All become ambassadors for the anti-bullying initiative.

When Team members encounter resistance from bullies and managers, it is imperative that their supervisor or leader intercede and mandate cooperation with the Team activities. Resistance should be considered insubordination and grounds for termination. That’s how we define executive commitment to the success of the anti-bullying effort. Anything less is timid and easily defied by bully managers.

Given your response to the previous question, what seems to be the most serious problem that most organizations encounter when attempting to sustain their bully-free workplace? Why?

We have found new executives unwilling to sustain their predecessors’ commitment to the prohibition of bullying. It reveals a lack of the necessary abilities we said executives should possess to comprehensively tackle bullying.

It can take years to overcome resistance within organizations so that anti-bullying efforts can be started. Sadly, with the stroke of a pen, in an instant, all those efforts by so many people can be eliminated and bullying instantly restored.

That’s the American way of doing business.

See the original article

The persecution and humiliation of Deb Caldieri, the teacher who responded to the suicide of Phoebe Prince with a compassion so utterly lacking elsewhere in South Hadley High School, is complete. She was fired last week.

Gus Sayer, the school district’s superintendent, sent a letter to Caldieri – who went on unpaid medical leave in December because of her multiple sclerosis – saying he couldn’t wait around any longer to see whether the symptoms would subside enough for her to return to work. Those symptoms got worse after Caldieri was punished for speaking out about Phoebe Prince’s treatment at the high school.

Sayer said he hadn’t heard from Caldieri in months, so he had to go hire a new Latin teacher before classes start in September.

“I called Gus Sayer on Friday and asked him why he couldn’t have called me about this and he said my phone was out of service,’’ Deb Caldieri said. “My house phone is out,’’ she said, “because they haven’t been paying me all year and I can’t afford it. But I still have my cellphone. When I asked him why he couldn’t have just called me on my cellphone, he said he didn’t have the number. But the school called me on that number all the time.’’

That’s not what Sayer told me.

“The only number we had for her was her house,’’ he said.

Why not just go to her house and tell her face to face?

“I didn’t know if she was living at home,’’ he said.

But then, that’s the address that the termination letter was sent to, so maybe we’re beating a dead horse here.

In the end, Caldieri’s termination was handled the same way as her slow and torturous exit from South Hadley High: with a cold detachment that made the deterioration of her health inevitable.

The day after Prince, 15, hanged herself in January 2010, after months of bullying at the hands of other students, Caldieri responded with compassion, taking four girls to visit a boy who had liked Phoebe and was devastated by her suicide.

Dan Smith, who has just stepped down as principal, accused Caldieri of not getting the proper approval to take the kids out of school. Whether she did or not was very much open to debate, but that was a smoke screen anyway. Caldieri’s real sin was to challenge Smith’s authority and suggest that Phoebe wasn’t protected as she should have been. Smith told her he was going to get rid of her, and he did.

Other administrators would sit in on her classes, challenging her teaching methods. Her MS was already wearing on her, and the stress from Smith’s threat and the intimidation tactics of other administrators triggered seizures. She went on medical leave in December, bullied out of South Hadley High just as Phoebe was.

Sayer maintains his people did nothing wrong in the Prince case, and he says they bent over backward to keep Caldieri in the classroom. He says her MS was an issue long before Phoebe Prince, and rejects any suggestion that the way the school treated her worsened her symptoms.

He also rejects Caldieri’s claim that Smith, who retired in June, was vindictive in pursuing disciplinary action against her. “We don’t treat anybody like that,’’ he said.

Phoebe’s parents consider Caldieri one of the few adults at the high school who tried to help their daughter. They were furious when they found out Smith purposely excluded her from the girl’s funeral.

Phoebe’s aunt, Eileen Moore, has been paying Caldieri’s health insurance. It’s paid up through this month. Caldieri’s trying to get health insurance elsewhere. She’s already destitute. She may soon be a very sick woman without any health insurance.

Deb Caldieri started crying on the phone with Gus Sayer. He tried to comfort her by suggesting that maybe if her MS gets better she could reapply for a job in South Hadley. That won’t happen.

“I can’t go back,’’ Caldieri said. “I can’t even go near the building.’’

via Cruel lesson for a teacher – The Boston Globe.

BOSTON – With a law on the books targeting bullying in schools, it is time to look at another common arena for bullying: the workplace, according to supporters of another bullying proposal.

Known as the healthy workplace bill, the legislation would define and make it illegal to bully an employee or colleague.

Rep. Frank Smizik (D-Brookline) said there is a gap in the current bullying laws that needs to be closed.

“We neglected to acknowledge that bullying is not restricted to our children,” he said.

Several workers who say they were bullied by supervisors or fellow workers told their stories Thursday to members of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development. A handful of those who were bullied broke down in tears telling stories of harassment and mistreatment.

Debi Caldieri, a Latin teacher at South Hadley High School, said she was harassed and berated at the school that became synonymous with bullying behavior in the wake of 14-year-old Phoebe Prince’s suicide.

Caldieri, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, said teachers and the principal at the school made it difficult for her to work with her medical condition. Caldieri attributed her treatment to being one of the few who complained about Prince’s plight.

“I was disciplined if a student mentioned I wasn’t feeling well,” Caldieri said.

Caldieri said she was reprimanded for not staying at school to prepare for her six classes, and was once thrown out of the building after a misunderstanding with the principal, she said. She has since left her position because her medical condition deteriorated, partly from stress, she said.

Other workers told lawmakers they suffer emotional and physical stress from workplace bullying.

Juana Gayle Flores, a teacher, said she suffered ongoing harassment and “constant ethnic mocking” from the school principal who often publicly corrected her pronunciations in a mocking way.

“When I brought my concerns to the office of labor relations no one took my concerns seriously,” Flores said. “They labeled my case personal.”

Flores said she was hospitalized twice from stress and anxiety brought on by the bullying. “As a Hispanic woman who served in the Army for 23 years, I have never experience anything like this,” she said.

Several legislators testified in favor of the bill (H 2310 / S 916).

Sen. Katherine Clark (D-Melrose) said nearly one-third of all workers experience some form of workplace bullying in their careers. Bullying at work is four times more likely to occur than sexual harassment, Clark said.

“High unemployment rates only make this situation worse,” Clark said, adding that many people will stay in a bullying situation rather than risk being out of work.

Currently, 19 other states are considering similar proposals.

via Massachusetts legislators hear pitch for law targeting workplace bullying | masslive.com.

Americans face bullying long after they have left the playground with a startling 35% of adults either been bullied or currently experiencing bullying at work, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute.

Workplace bullying is defined by the WBI as “repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one of more persons by one or more perpetrators,” and includes verbal abuse, offensive conduct and behaviors (including nonverbal) that are threatening, humiliating or intimidating and work interference or sabotage, which prevents work from getting done.

These actions have serious side effects for victims, according to the WBI, including heart disease and post-traumatic stress disorder. Now lobbyists are increasing their calls for state lawmakers to pass anti-bullying in the workplace legislation.

Dr. Gary Naime, national director of the Healthy Workplace Campaign, started lobbying for anti-bullying laws in 2003. Right now, his “Healthy Workplace Bill,” has been introduced in 21 states with New York the closest sate to passing it into law. The New York bill has 43 current co-sponsors, and a new Senate version of the bill is in the process of being written. A companion Senate bill was introduced and referred to the Labor Committee in March 2011.

For employers, the bill defines an “abusive work environment” and requires proof of health harm by licensed professionals. It gives employers reason to terminate or sanction offenders and requires plaintiffs to use private attorneys.

“It’s very soft on employers, and will give them rewards for taking care of bullying voluntarily,” he says. “If they do, they have no responsibility – [legally] they are freed.”

For workers, the New York bill provides an avenue for legal action against “health harming cruelty at work,” and allows a victim to sue the bully as an individual. It also holds the employer accountable by allows for restoration of lost wages and benefits, and compels employers to prevent and correct future instances.

According to a 2010 WBI survey, 15% of workers reported they have witnessed bullying in the workplace. With that said, 50% of respondents reported they have never seen or “don’t know” what bullying is.

“It’s not that they don’t see it, but what they do see they do not consider unacceptable,” Naime says. “They consider it routine—not negative or bad. It’s much more severe than trivial stuff. It is repeated malicious verbal abuse, threats, humiliation and work sabotage. That is pretty severe.”

As the national sponsor of the Healthy Workplace Bill, Naime says he is not looking for lawsuits to bring an end to bullying in the workplace. His goal is to have bullying treated the same way as harassment in the office.

“Employers are ignoring it and HR has dropped the ball—72% of bullying is done by management.”

Also according to the Institute, once a person is targeted by a bully, they have a 64% chance of either being fired or quitting his/her job.

Polly Wright, senior consultant at HR Consults Inc., a management and human resource consulting and training firm, says bullying in the workplace is extremely common. She remembers being bullied by a manager at her first job out of college, but she stayed at the job because she had no other options.

“I was married to that job for financial reasons,” she says. “Bullying is just basically harassment. And sometimes you don’t even realize it is happening. As employers we should be handling it the same as we would unlawful harassment.”

Bullying in the workplace can begin with cliques forming in the office, or by hiring someone with a bad temper or anger-management issues. Wright says many of the Human Resource policies she has recently created for businesses have included wording about bullying in the workplace.

All managers in a company should be trained on what the legal line of harassment actually is, and make sure employees aren’t crossing this line, Wright says. Also, employees may try to work out the issue amongst themselves, but once HR is brought into the picture an investigation will be launched, she says.

“I really think that it takes a toll on morale, to the point where employees are so disengaged in their work environment they are just going through the motions,” Wright says. “They will go through their day trying to have the least amount of interaction with their bully as possible.”

Although Wright condemns bullying, she is not in favor of the Healthy Workplace Bill and says it can be addressed in already-established policies, like those that deal with harassment.

“It will be another burden on employers,” she says. “Hopefully we keep it out of final legislation—employers should just address [bullying] in conjunction with harassment. We shouldn’t need a law to tell us that.”

If a worker is being bullied in a family business, or small company, Naime advises to leave right away, and says changing the culture in a smaller office is often more difficult than in a corporation setting.

“All you can do is try and make it, but in a small business you are trapped,” he says. “In a bigger company there are more layers and you do have a chance of convincing someone that the idiot needs to go, not you.”

via New Bill Targets Workplace Bullying – FoxBusiness.com.

Americans face bullying long after they have left the playground with a startling 35% of adults either been bullied or currently experiencing bullying at work, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute.

Workplace bullying is defined by the WBI as “repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one of more persons by one or more perpetrators,” and includes verbal abuse, offensive conduct and behaviors (including nonverbal) that are threatening, humiliating or intimidating and work interference or sabotage, which prevents work from getting done.

These actions have serious side effects for victims, according to the WBI, including heart disease and post-traumatic stress disorder. Now lobbyists are increasing their calls for state lawmakers to pass anti-bullying in the workplace legislation.

Dr. Gary Naime, national director of the Healthy Workplace Campaign, started lobbying for anti-bullying laws in 2003. Right now, his “Healthy Workplace Bill,” has been introduced in 21 states with New York the closest sate to passing it into law. The New York bill has 43 current co-sponsors, and a new Senate version of the bill is in the process of being written. A companion Senate bill was introduced and referred to the Labor Committee in March 2011.

For employers, the bill defines an “abusive work environment” and requires proof of health harm by licensed professionals. It gives employers reason to terminate or sanction offenders and requires plaintiffs to use private attorneys.

“It’s very soft on employers, and will give them rewards for taking care of bullying voluntarily,” he says. “If they do, they have no responsibility – [legally] they are freed.”

For workers, the New York bill provides an avenue for legal action against “health harming cruelty at work,” and allows a victim to sue the bully as an individual. It also holds the employer accountable by allows for restoration of lost wages and benefits, and compels employers to prevent and correct future instances.

According to a 2010 WBI survey, 15% of workers reported they have witnessed bullying in the workplace. With that said, 50% of respondents reported they have never seen or “don’t know” what bullying is.

“It’s not that they don’t see it, but what they do see they do not consider unacceptable,” Naime says. “They consider it routine—not negative or bad. It’s much more severe than trivial stuff. It is repeated malicious verbal abuse, threats, humiliation and work sabotage. That is pretty severe.”

As the national sponsor of the Healthy Workplace Bill, Naime says he is not looking for lawsuits to bring an end to bullying in the workplace. His goal is to have bullying treated the same way as harassment in the office.

“Employers are ignoring it and HR has dropped the ball—72% of bullying is done by management.”

Also according to the Institute, once a person is targeted by a bully, they have a 64% chance of either being fired or quitting his/her job.

Polly Wright, senior consultant at HR Consults Inc., a management and human resource consulting and training firm, says bullying in the workplace is extremely common. She remembers being bullied by a manager at her first job out of college, but she stayed at the job because she had no other options.

“I was married to that job for financial reasons,” she says. “Bullying is just basically harassment. And sometimes you don’t even realize it is happening. As employers we should be handling it the same as we would unlawful harassment.”

Bullying in the workplace can begin with cliques forming in the office, or by hiring someone with a bad temper or anger-management issues. Wright says many of the Human Resource policies she has recently created for businesses have included wording about bullying in the workplace.

All managers in a company should be trained on what the legal line of harassment actually is, and make sure employees aren’t crossing this line, Wright says. Also, employees may try to work out the issue amongst themselves, but once HR is brought into the picture an investigation will be launched, she says.

“I really think that it takes a toll on morale, to the point where employees are so disengaged in their work environment they are just going through the motions,” Wright says. “They will go through their day trying to have the least amount of interaction with their bully as possible.”

Although Wright condemns bullying, she is not in favor of the Healthy Workplace Bill and says it can be addressed in already-established policies, like those that deal with harassment.

“It will be another burden on employers,” she says. “Hopefully we keep it out of final legislation—employers should just address [bullying] in conjunction with harassment. We shouldn’t need a law to tell us that.”

If a worker is being bullied in a family business, or small company, Naime advises to leave right away, and says changing the culture in a smaller office is often more difficult than in a corporation setting.

“All you can do is try and make it, but in a small business you are trapped,” he says. “In a bigger company there are more layers and you do have a chance of convincing someone that the idiot needs to go, not you.”

via New Bill Targets Workplace Bullying.

Interview conducted by Taylor Korsak, Editorial Intern for Human Resources iQ. Listen to the Audio Podcast.

1. Let’s begin our discussion by defining “bullying in the workplace.” How common is it and why should it be a major concern for company leaders?

First, let me be clear that we distinguish bullying from incivility, inappropriateness, rudeness and disrespect. Our definition is “repeated, health-harming mistreatment by one or more employees directed toward another employee that takes the form of verbal abuse, threats, intimidation, and humiliation, interference with work production or in some combination.” It is a form of abuse. It is recognized by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) as a non-physical form of workplace violence. Bullying is not merely an arched eyebrow or raised voice, it is a systematic campaign of interpersonal destruction launched by one person, with many others soon joining in, to destroy another person’s health, status, identity, job, career, and sometimes even their family.

We know from the national scientific studies we’ve run in 2010 and 2007 that 35 percent of all adult Americans have been directly bullied, according to our definition.

Business leaders should care because of its impact on employee health, work productivity impaired by excessive absenteeism, turnover (loss) of the best and brightest workers, workers comp and disability claims and litigation expenses. They should care, but those same national surveys found that the most likely response by employers to reported bullying was to ignore or worsen it.

2.  What is the most common bully-target relationship in terms of roles? Why?

Bullying is mostly top-down. Bullies outrank their targets in 72 percent of cases (2007 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey). Coworkers are perpetrators in 18 percent of incidents; 10 percent of the time it is a brave subordinate who bullies up the ladder.

Why? It is simply easier to inflict pain when you have title power. Coworkers can make your life miserable through ostracism (no small thing), but they cannot threaten to take your job away as the employer can. With so few people in unions, anyone can be fired for any reason on a whim.

All bullies share the need to control other people. They are bright, but not introspective or self-critical and they need to dominate to feel whole. There is an overwhelming narcissism that compels every action. Unless others agree to follow, they will be banished. Narcissism is not restricted to any position in an organization chart.

3. What are some researched effects of bullying and why do targets often neglect to speak up?

Bullying of adults by adults involves a great deal of shame and guilt. Shame is the bully’s goal from humiliating the target. Half of bullying is behind closed doors, so without explicitly telling friends and family, it is the bully’s and target’s secret. Personal guilt can arise because the person is mad that she or he allowed the bullying to happen. Bullies choose their targets, methods, timing, and place, but somehow, targets internalize responsibility, or shared responsibility (from our societal “it takes two to tango” or the equally inane “there are two sides to every story”), for what is happening to them. Shame and guilt prevent targets from speaking up.

In addition, the work culture is clear to those who work there. Complainers are dubbed troublemakers and retaliated against.

Research on the effects of bullying on individuals is extensive. The studies come from the fields of occupational health, epidemiology, medicine, neuroscience, and social sciences. A summary breaks the impact on people into three categories of harm: health, social relations and economic.

Health harm begins with stress-related physical health consequences. Cardiovascular system impact has the earliest onset — hypertension. High blood pressure results from abusive supervisors. The risk of coronary heart disease is 40 percent greater if workers believe their supervisors are unjust and bullies go well beyond being unjust. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is measured routinely in studies and is found to be too high in people exposed to unremitting mistreatment. Most fascinating is that prolonged stress ages women prematurely, costing them 9-12 years of life expectancy, based on studies measuring telomeres — the protective tips of DNA chromosomes.

Health harm is also the psychological-emotional impact, ranging from debilitating anxiety to clinical depression induced by work to PTSD to suicide. Our online (non-scientific) surveys found that 39 percent of targets have been diagnosed with depression and 30 percent of women targets suffer PTSD. Doubters don’t think work can traumatize individuals, but remember bullying creates an abusive relationship. Abuse can traumatize, not everyone, but far too many.

Harm to social relationships primarily involves ostracism, social exclusion, by coworkers. Targets are treated as pariahs once targeted. Coworkers do little to help – they fear for their own safety and status.

Economic harm is clear. The most effective current way to stop the bullying is for the target to lose the job she or he once loved. According to our 2007 national study, 40 percent quit (probably for their health’s sake). An additional 24 percent were fired (by manufactured performance reports or other lies).

4. You draw an interesting parallel between bullying and Darwinism – the concept of survival of the fittest – stating how certain corporate cultures designated by CEOs to weed out the least effective workers and bullying might beneficial for such a goal. Needless to say, CEOs are often thinking very differently than others in their business – how could an anti-bullying campaign appeal to the CEO? How should one build a case?

Yes, bullies and their apologists are social Darwinists. The organizing principle that dominates the entire company is the CEO’s narcissism. He (and it’s a “he” in 97 percent of firms in the U.S.) sets the tone.

Jack Welch comes to mind. He is granted hero status, forgetting his old moniker of “Neutron Jack” who had the reputation of obliterating companies of workers.

I agree that CEOs do think differently. Welch taught his CEO colleagues to focus on shareholder value and short-term profits. His famous strategy of firing 10 percent of workers regardless of performance, to keep them afraid, is simply not human. Unfortunately, that mindset has been adopted by sheep-like Welchians. It’s easy to be cruel.

Some leaders are different people but with a personal moral inner directedness. They stand out because of their rarity. Not everyone believes treating workers like chattel is sufficient. Some can see value in long-term viability, not simply having monotonically rising quarterly profits.

I draw this distinction because without CEO approval (and some degree of participation), there can be no anti-bullying initiative success in the long-run. The CEOs who have brought us in to deal with bullying fall into two categories: early adopters and the legacy-oriented. It is counter-cultural to want to stop bullying that historically has been the characterization of the American style of managing. Bold contrarian CEOs love to be first to adopt a new program before it becomes a fad. Public awareness of workplace bullying has grown exponentially since we started back in mid-97 and corporate attorneys are warning their clients to not ignore the problems bullying causes.

Legacy-oriented leaders may be transitioning to a different post or the final phase of their careers. They want to leave behind something for which they can be remembered. The legacy can be within the industry, among their peer CEOs or for the workers at the company they led. Their gift is to establish a bullying-free workplace with their name attached.

Sadly, the impersonal, traditional business-case arguments that bullying increases risk exposure and that it eats into the bottom line fall onto deaf ears. The personal bonds between executives and their beloved bullies trump fiscal impact, though it makes no business sense. It is a world turned upside down, driven by favoritism and ingratiation, but it is more tangible and real than balance sheets.

The ROI for an anti-bullying program is great. But as long as “Bob the bully” is free to operate with the CEO’s blessing (or implicit approval through his indifference to complaints), stopping bullying will appear expensive when in fact it is the bully who is too expensive to keep!

5. What are other contributing factors that could lead to a bullying situation in terms of personality types and environment?

Most people begin with the assumption that bullies must be crazy or disturbed. Not so. Most bullies are not psychopaths; however those who bully are certainly narcissistic. They have an inflated sense of themselves relative to what others think, but they need not have a certifiable personality disorder. They are egocentric and selfish though that is true of many millions of us.

Bullies are astute at reading cues in the work environment. For instance, they see subtleties that others miss. They see that aggressive acts are noticed by management, which, in turn, are rewarded. Sometimes the reward is a promotion though more likely it’s the granting of special privileges. Those of us who are not bullies might see it and decide that it is deplorable to take advantage of another person but bullies see it as a skill necessary for political survival and career progress. Then, when they are aggressive themselves and reap personal rewards for doing to, the pattern is established. It is simple learning theory — positive reinforcement increases the likelihood that the rewarded behavior will reoccur.

Bullying is always a mix of personality of the bully and target and work environment. But environment is more influential than personality. Regardless of the person’s disposition, if conditions are engineered to create and sustain bullying, most employees can act like bullies at work. They do not become bullies in other domains of their lives. At work, however, they slip into a role and follow the unwritten script. The power of environment over personality is backed by decades of social psychological research.

6. If one is a bystander or witness to a bullying situation, is it his/her responsibility to do something? How should he/she proceed?

We would all like to think we would jump to rescue another person in danger. A bullied target is in danger, but we know from experience and research that others do relatively nothing. We imagine a brave encounter with the bully when the coworker stands shoulder to shoulder with the target and counterattacks. That’s myth. It happens less than 1 percent of the time (according to our 2008 study).

So, why expect coworkers to help when they see a target emerge from a closed-door berating and slip into her or his cubicle without saying a word? Social influence is strongest when situations are ambiguous or murky. A witness can rationalize not doing anything by concluding that he was misinterpreting what he saw and that it was not his business to butt into someone else’s privacy.

You are not likely to be there during the bullying incident. The target will describe events later. Gather all the other coworkers and establish that the response will have to be undertaken by the group. Purposefully share the responsibility. Decide what to do together — go two levels over the bully’s head or confront the bully in person — and have all participate. Power comes from a unified group. Stick to holding the person accountable because of the disruption of work, not because they have a warped personality. Make an impersonal financial impact argument to the highest level manager you can find without accidentally complaining to the bully’s relative or the boss who hired him.

Link to the original article

Bosses seldom attack employees physically, but emotional bullying can cause enough damage that some say it should be against the law.

According to the Workplace Bullying Institute, half of the U.S. workforce has witnessed such bullying, experienced it or known a family member who was bullied at work. The group has promoted legislation that has been introduced in 11 states to outlaw what it calls the “silent epidemic.”

The group wants to hold employers liable for bullying on the job, much like the responsibility they already have of prohibiting discrimination based on sex, race, religion and other protected civil rights categories. Several European nations have made bullying unlawful.

Texas employment lawyer Michael W. Fox argues, however, that passing laws to regulate loosely defined misbehavior at work is not a good way to deal with the problem.

For example, the Abusive Work Environment Act in Illinois would prohibit repeated verbal abuse of employees including derogatory remarks, verbal or physical conduct that is intimidating or humiliating and sabotaging or undermining an employee’s work performance. The bill passed the Illinois Senate last year but is pending in the Illinois General Assembly.

“Lots of those things happen at work,” said Fox, an employment lawyer at Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart in Austin who represents management. Fox made the comments during a seminar presentation, Civility in the Workplace: Now It Is a Legal Issue, at HR Houston’s Gulf Coast symposium last week in Houston.

Bringing it out in the open

But to the anti-bullying forces, the problem is simmering, and they compare it to the time when people just whispered about domestic violence. No one wanted to intervene, said Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute in Bellingham, Wash.

Friends and family denied the violence or rationalized it by figuring it couldn’t be that bad or the victim wouldn’t put up with it, said Namie, who co-authored the recently published book The Bully Free Workplace: Stop the Jerks, Weasels and Snakes From Killing Your Organization.

Those who spoke out against domestic violence are heroes now, he said, and he hopes workplaces won’t tolerate bullying or attitudes like, “Hey, that’s why they call it work,” or “Why don’t you grow a thicker skin?” But he said the stress causes cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems, panic attacks and depression.

Those who spoke out against domestic violence are heroes now, he said, and he hopes workplaces won’t tolerate bullying or attitudes like, “Hey, that’s why they call it work,” or “Why don’t you grow a thicker skin?” But he said the stress causes cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems, panic attacks and depression.

Namie contends he’s fighting against entrenched business interests that claim regulations aren’t necessary and complaints can be handled as they come up.

Getting attention

Fox said, however, that Namie’s side of the argument has made progress in the past decade in getting legislative and other attention.

He points to a $325,000 jury verdict that was upheld three years ago by the Indiana Supreme Court for an operating room employee who alleged a cardiovascular surgeon bullied him by advancing “aggressively and rapidly” with “clenched fists, piercing eyes, beet-red face, popping veins, and screaming and swearing.” The employee, who was backed into a corner, reported he put his hands up to protect himself, but the surgeon abruptly walked away.

While the jury verdict was officially for assault, the testimony revolved around “workplace bullying” and included testimony from Namie, according to court records.

“It hit a receptive note with jurors,” Fox said. Workplace bullying has also drawn attention from researchers who study the effects of stress on employees’ health.

Namie said he saw that stress up close, and that’s why he launched the effort more than a decade ago to make workplace bullying unlawful. It all started when his wife’s new boss turned her life into a nightmare.

Bullies often target a thoroughly competent longtime employee, he said. The bully — typically a supervisor – feels threatened by that knowledge and competence and launches an effort to drive the person out.

The target is usually a nonconfrontational person who pays little attention to office politics.

“The poor targeted person never sees it coming,” he said.

Managing the image

Bullies, on the other hand, are masters at appearance management and ingratiate themselves with the higher-ups, Namie said. That typically includes casting aspersions against subordinates as untrustworthy and unreliable so that if they complain, they’re branded as troublemakers.

Since there is nothing to compel an employer to take the bullying seriously, about the only thing targets can do is control their departure, he said – leaving on their own terms and making sure others know the truth.

Namie’s wife received a settlement to leave her job quietly. A year later, in 1997, – the couple launched the Workplace Bullying Institute.

The group’s proposed “heathy workplace bill” would require employers to take action against bullies, while requiring employees who bring a claim to document health problems stemming from the bad behavior.

The initiative hasn’t gotten far in Texas.

Dozens of calls a month

Esque Walker, Texas coordinator for Texas Healthy Workplace Advocates in Dallas, said no Texas legislator has signed on as sponsor.

She said, though, that she fields dozens of calls each month from people who say they’ve been bullied at work and don’t know where to turn, including 10 in the past month from Houstonians. The callers include teachers, nurses, firefighters and government employees.

Walker, who joined the group after she was bullied at work, recommends they get professional counseling because being bullied can cause psychological harm. And then plan that graceful exit.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/sixel/7573152.html#ixzz1MuXrTtcj

Maria Morrissey, sister of deceased literary journal editor Kevin Morrissey, will speak next week at a news conference in support of New York legislation on workplace bullying.

Morrissey committed suicide last summer. The incident prompted a wave of news coverage when some of his colleagues asserted that Morrissey had been verbally harassed by his boss at the Virginia Quarterly Review, editor and poet Ted Genoways.

Sister Maria has emerged as a sort of national spokesperson on workplace bullying, and it is in that capacity that she will speak Monday in support of the Healthy Workplace Bill in Albany, N.Y. She sent me a news release from the organization New York Healthy Workplace Advocates that lists her as one of three speakers, all giving personal accounts of alleged workplace bullying. A spokeswoman for New York Sen. Diane Savino, a Democrat and chief sponsor of the bill in that chamber, confirmed the Monday event.

Supporters and detractors of Genoways — who still runs the journal on the University of Virginia campus — remain divided on his role in the affair.

An internal investigation by the university faulted Genoways for “questionable” management and the university for weak oversight. It did not directly address whether the boss bore any responsibility in the death of his employee.

At least one lengthy article on the case, in Slate, concluded that bullying wasn’t quite the right word for what happened in the journal offices. It asked, “Did Genoways act with malice — the bar set even by the bullying advocates — or did he just act clumsily or unfeelingly? And does it make sense to use the bullying framework to look at dysfunctional work environments?”

Fellow writers rose to Genoways’s defense. But Morrissey’s siblings and much of the journal’s small staff supported the theory that the top editor bore some measure of blame.

Meanwhile, copies of the struggling journal’s Spring 2011 issue have sold out.

On March 24, in the wee hours of the morning, eight women from the grass roots organization Texas Healthy Workplace Advocates gathered on the north steps of the state capitol in Austin waiting for the doors to open.

The women arrived armed and ready to meet with lawmakers in several political districts across the state of Texas. The women had traveled from Alvarado, Corsicana, Dallas, Fort Worth, Graham, and Houston to speak to lawmakers about the prevalence and the devastating consequences of workplace bullying. The group was there to shop a bill for the next legislative session the Healthy Workplace Bill; we need this bill in Texas. The group presented accounts of their bullying experiences to lawmakers.

There has been an increase in the number of complaints of workplace bullying in Abilene, El Paso, Houston, and in Dallas and Tarrant Counties. People in Texas are suffering because of abusive work environments. Until there are laws we will continue to be plagued with this problem.

One member in the group stated, “I don’t want to die! But I can no longer afford to live because of workplace bullying.” The stories shared with representatives were powerful, touching, and captured the essence of the problem. We just went in and did what needed to be done; we told the truth about what has happened to us and other members of the group. Please do not be fooled by the appearance and the size of the group, there are a number of men in the group that are targets of workplace bullying and there are a number of members throughout the state of Texas.

Overall there is disbelief that this is happening in Texas, shock about the number of targets in Texas, and this behavior is not within the legal statutes. In one of the representative’s office, they couldn’t believe that workplace bullying is happening in Abilene. “It is a Christian community” is the belief there — I explained to the aide there is nothing Christian about workplace bullying. I felt sorry for the guy. He said he had grown up in Abilene and he couldn’t believe that a “Christian community” such as Abilene would allow this to happen; he was devastated.

I presented a profile of the Texas cities by ZIP code that have the highest concentrations of targets; the list showed only 171 targets in the cities of Abilene, Austin, Conroe, Corpus Christi, Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth, Garland, Houston, Irving, Killeen, Midland, Round Rock, San Antonio, Temple and Waco.

Texas lawmakers have been slow to focus on workplace bullying and the devastation it is causing, however, I believe a small victory was won last October when Mayor John Cook and the city council in El Paso took an initiative to recognize bullying as an adult issue by issuing a proclamation declaring the third week of October “Freedom from Bullies week” in El Paso. This is the first official elected to an office to show interest in the well-being of the people he serves.

Workplace bullying is defined as repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more people by one or more perpetrators that takes one or more of the following forms: verbal abuse, offensive conduct/behaviors which are threatening, humiliating, or intimidating and work interference sabotage.

Additionally, workplace bullying is violence — it is emotional and psychological destruction of an individual for the satisfaction of another.
This issue needs immediate attention. Not only does the behavior impact the targets, their families, and the organizations; society as a whole is impacted through social welfare programs that targets forced from the workplace must depend on for survival.

If bullying could be stopped and money once used to support targets on social welfare programs, Texas politicians would be able to balance the budget and have money left over for other things.

Esque Walker is the Texas Coordinator for Texas Healthy Workplace Advocates.

A good article citing WBI’s 2010 U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey and the Healthy Workplace Campaign pushing for enactment of the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill. Read the story.

Proponents say workplace bullying is widespread and procedures for dealing with it are ineffective. They back a model called the ‘Healthy Workplace Bill.’

Reporting from Annapolis, Md.

Kathie Gant knew the relationship with her new boss was bad, but she didn’t know how bad until the woman, a Maryland attorney, hurled a bundle of pencils at Gant, her administrative assistant. “You just don’t sharpen my pencils for me!” the boss raged, punctuating each word with exaggerated enunciation and the zing of a pencil across the office toward Gant.

Months later, Gant was in a storage closet in the courthouse where she worked when the lights were shut off. “I turned toward the door and she was standing there,” Gant said of the supervisor. “I tried to say ‘Hey, I’m in here!’ ” Her boss stared back, shut the door, and locked it from the outside, trapping Gant in the pitch-black space.

After months of taunts and needling by her boss, Gant said she ended up on a psychiatrist’s couch and nearly in a psych ward.

With a quavering voice and tearful demeanor, Gant testified about her job situation during a legislative hearing this month at the state Capitol as Maryland became one of the latest states to consider legislation against workplace bullying. She recounted some details later in an interview.

Progress has been slow since California in 2003 became the first state to introduce a “Healthy Workplace Bill,” which would give employees legal protection against those they say torment them at work (The measure died in committee). Since then, 19 other states have proposed similar legislation, though none has passed it into law.

David C. Yamada, a law professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston and the author of the Healthy Workplace Bill, said laws protect workers from abuse only on the basis of such things as race or religion. Employees who do not fall into a protected category have no legal means of fighting bullying.

Opponents of legislation say employees already are protected by anti-discrimination laws and workplace rules against abusive behavior. They also say that human resources departments exist to help employees deal with workplace problems.

If all else fails, bullied workers can bypass their bosses and seek help from higher-ranking supervisors, said Champe McCulloch, president of the Maryland Assn. of General Contractors and a former human resources director at Verizon.

”There’s always an internal appeals process,” said McCulloch, one of three lobbyists to speak against the bill on March 3 when it was introduced to the state Senate’s finance committee. “At some point, the employee has to screw his or her courage to the sticking post and keep escalating the complaint up the management chain. I assure you … at the senior management ranks, somebody is going to take action.”

But proponents say that alleged bullying that may have led to highly publicized suicides last year — including that of a 52-year-old magazine editor who accused his boss of abusive behavior, and a 15-year-old schoolgirl who was taunted by classmates — have focused attention on the problem and galvanized efforts to pass legislation. So, too, has workers’ frustration over several states’ efforts to follow Wisconsin in curtailing the power of unions representing public employees.

While the suicide of Phoebe Prince, the Massachusetts girl, shed light on school bullying, Gary Namie of the Workplace Bullying Institute in Bellingham, Wash., said it underscored the need for legislation at all levels.

”

If it is not stopped at childhood, it clearly progresses into adulthood,” Namie said, citing a 2010 study by the bullying institute and the Zogby International polling company that indicated 35% of adults in the United States had been bullied at work. An additional 15% said they had witnessed workplace bullying. According to the survey, most bullies are men and most victims are women, but both sexes report being bullied by male and female bosses, and women are more likely to seek help from human resources.

“This year it’s an especially uphill struggle,” Namie said of workplace bullying legislation, citing “attacks on workers in general” in Wisconsin and other states proposing new limits on labor unions.

But Namie said he believes New York, where the state Senate passed a bill last year, is likely to get it signed into law in 2011.

“If New York becomes the first to pass it, that’s a bellwether state, so others would follow,” said Namie, a social psychologist who founded the institute 14 years ago with his wife, Ruth, after she experienced on-the-job bullying.

The Healthy Workplace Bill, used to guide individual states’ proposed legislation, forbids a health-harming “abusive work environment” and requires medical documentation to prove worker claims of bullying.

Proponents of anti-bullying bills say this is among the measures that would prevent a flood of lawsuits by disgruntled employees.

Yamada, the Healthy Workplace Bill author, said workers face the challenge of trying to prove bullying, which generally falls short of physical assault and is Machiavellian and difficult to identify. “I liken our understanding of workplace bullying to where we were with sexual harassment three decades ago,” Yamada said. “A lot of people have had to deal with this for years but didn’t know what to call it.”

Bill backers say internal appeals processes often fall short, citing the case of Kevin Morrissey, who was managing editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review magazine. Morrissey shot himself to death last June after relatives and friends said his — and others’ — repeated complaints about a bullying boss were ignored. The University of Virginia, which publishes the magazine, said it had handled the complaints properly and that the manager could not be blamed for Morrissey’s death.

The recession has made it easier for bullies to carry on because jobs are scarce and employees are reluctant to quit or to speak up and be seen as troublemakers, bill proponents say.

Gant, who worked in a county courthouse, said that after a few months a new boss openly called her “stupid,” humiliated her at meetings, and sent out office e-mails that belittled her work.

Gant is still at a loss to explain the behavior. Because much of the abuse was unseen by others — the pencil-throwing, the locking of the closet, the snide comments — it was difficult to make others realize how bad it was, she said.

“She was an attorney. I never felt she’d go that far,” said Gant, who was haunted by the experience long after the woman’s departure. One day, the woman returned to the office for a brief visit. Gant hid in an office until she was gone.

Gant remained on the job a few more months but has since taken another job that she enjoys. She said she also went back to school to study for a doctorate and bolster her self-confidence, “so if I ever see her again, I’ll be ready.”

###

tina.susman@latimes.com

Headlines from around the country have brought the issue of abusive work environments also known as workplace bullying to light. The widespread and generally unaddressed problem of workplace bullying is often not understood despite studies that show nearly 40 percent of Massachusetts residents report experiencing some type of workplace bullying at one point in their working careers.

Workplace bullying is defined as repeated health harming mistreatment at a work environment in the form of verbal abuse, offensive and threatening behavior, or work interference and sabotage.  It happens when a bully uses a position of control to harm a coworker or employee.  Dr. Gary Namie states that 72 percent of workplace bullying occurs against a subordinate and 68 percent of the time it involves people of the same gender.

Workplace bullying, abuse, and harassment are four times more prevalent than sexual harassment.  These incidents not only hurt the victim, but can also negatively impact the entire workplace by dividing groups of coworkers, reducing employee productivity and morale, causing higher turnover and absenteeism rates, and increasing medical and workers’ compensation claims.

During this difficult and uncertain economic climate, workplace bullying can be even more dangerous. High unemployment rates make it risky to leave jobs and victims of bullying are many times forced to stay in abusive situations. Single parent workers are particularly vulnerable targets who face significant financial risk if forced to leave a job on which they rely to pay bills. A 1998 study at University of North Carolina demonstrated that out of 775 targets of workplace aggression, 28 percent lost time at work avoiding the situation, 22 percent decreased their effort, and 12 percent changed jobs.

The cost of bullying at a workplace also takes a significant toll on the health of victims.  Consistent bullying has been shown to cause stress disorders, clinical depression, cardiovascular disease, and symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Many times victims of workplace bullying can also have strained relationships with family and friends as a result of abusive work environments.  These victims deserve to have protections in place to ensure a healthy and safe work environment.

Massachusetts currently has laws on the books to protect against sexual harassment, racial discrimination, and hostile work environments, but to take legal action the victim must be a member of a protected class that includes gender, race, disability, ethnicity, and religion.

I have cosponsored legislation that aims to end widespread workplace bullying. The bill makes it unlawful to subject an employee to an abusive work environment and protects victims of workplace bullying who are not included under the current law. This bill also makes it unlawful to retaliate against an employee who opposes any unlawful employment practice. To be considered actionable, conduct there must be a nexus between the behavior and impairing the worker’s health. The legislation does not incur costs for the state and any legal action is limited to a private action.

Through the Healthy Workplace Campaign, 19 other states have proposed similar bullying legislation. There is a growing recognition of the toll this abusive behavior can have not only on individual workers, but also the entire office. In response to growing awareness of this problem, many employers have begun to change internal policies and goals to address workplace bullying. Both the legislature and business community have an opportunity to be leaders on this important issue and ensure healthy work environments across the state.

West Virginia is one of eight states with a pending workplace anti-bullying bill, but its longtime backer says he doesn’t expect it to pass this year.

Further, Dr. Gary Namie, a workplace educator and consultant, said what he sees as anti-worker sentiment brewing means he’ll be working longer on having a bill passed anywhere.

Namie began his quest to establish anti-bullying laws in the mid-1990s, when his wife, Dr. Ruth Namie experienced workplace bullying, complete with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Namie said despite all the federal and state laws covering worker relations and anti-discrimination laws, there is nothing to prevent bullying in many instances outside the federally protected classes of race, sexual orientation, religion or handicap.

The Namies started a campaign that eventually became the Workplace Bullying Institute of Bellingham, Wash., wrote books, held seminars, and began working to have states consider a sample law written by David Yamada, a Suffolk University law professor. They provide counseling and consulting services for employers as the Work Doctor.

They launched grass-roots efforts were in many states, including Ohio, where locally, John Smurda of Steubenville serves as state coordinator for the Healthy Workplace Bill.

Namie said he anticipates West Virginia House Bill 3015 introduced in the Legislature will be stalled between sessions, though he is hopeful it will be a topic for further study by an interim study committee. “The first time our bill gets introduced into a legislature, it doesn’t go far,” Namie said. “It usually takes two or three introductions, then, usually on the third try, there is enough awareness. For a lot of folks it’s the first time people heard the phrase ‘workplace bullying.’”

Bullying is defined in the West Virginia House bill as an employment practice that subjects the employee to an abusive work environment that exists when a defendant, acting with malice, subjects an employee to conduct so severe that it causes tangible harm. The bill also proposes making retaliation against a worker who complains or assists in handling a complaint an unlawful employment practice.

The Namies define the issue further on the website for their consulting firm, the Work Doctor.
Bullying isn’t mere incivility or crabby behavior. It’s verbal abuse, offensive conduct or behavior that threatens, humiliates or intimidates, takes the form of outright interference or sabotage that prevents work from getting done, exploits a psychological or physical vulnerability or is some combination of all of the above.

“Society has said no to every other form of abuse now,” he said. “If this is how you manage, you shouldn’t be in business. You’re making up for a lack of skill by being a bully.”

He said it’s often legislators who have had personal experience themselves or through family or friends who become backers of state legislation.

Since 2003, 20 states have introduced anti-bullying legislation for the workplace, including it advancing out of the Senate in New York in 2010, but it was not called for a full hearing in the state assembly. The bill was advancing well in Utah in 2010, but was stopped because the state had to focus on a budget crisis.

Namie said, despite the bill being portrayed by business organizations as unnecessary, or as being anti-business, it’s been carefully drafted. The burden of the proof falls heavily on the worker, who must pay to bring a lawsuit privately. “That precludes the frivolous lawsuits because attorneys won’t take cases they don’t think they can win,” he said.

Further, Namie said, the movement isn’t about putting greater burden on the state. It doesn’t call for any current agency or the creation of a new agency for enforcement. Strictly put, the proposal allows lawsuits to be brought, at heavy potential cost to a probably already unemployed plaintiff who will have to prove mental or physical damage came strictly because of bullying in the workplace, and that it was done with malice.

“Long before the current labor crisis, states already were strapped,” he said. “This would be enforced by private action only, so you’d have to convince an attorney to take the case, pony up the money to pay for it and that’s a disincentive for lawsuits.”

Further, the bill allows employers who deal with bullying issues in a proactive form literally to hang the accused bully out to dry in a legal sense.

So, what is Namie aiming for? Getting employers to recognize and deal with the problem voluntarily.

“This isn’t rocket science. We’ve done it when laws pushed us before. We’re saying don’t wait on the law. Do it now. Bullying is killing your organization from within now, and it’s not so much just the bully as that you’ve backed the bully. It’s the culture of bullying,” he said.

When bullying becomes the routine in a workplace, the environment is toxic, wreaking havoc on quality work.

The Namies’ Work Doctor site, for their consulting services for employers, says it’s not just a conflict between equally powered individuals having a disagreement on intellectual ideas, either. It’s violence that cannot be mediated.

Namie said 72 percent of bullying is against a subordinate, according to research done for the institute in Zogby International polling. The polls find that more than 52 million Americans say they’ve been bullied. Most bullying, 68 percent, is done by the same gender.

The Namies have written books approaching dealing with workplace bullying from the worker’s standpoint. They’re releasing in May a new book aimed toward employers, “The Bully Free Workplace.”

Namie said while the work of the Workplace Bullying Institute (www.workplacebullying.org) continues, he doesn’t consider success as anything less than finally getting a bill passed and made into law.

However, he knows with the events regarding public employee bargaining and budget difficulties, legislators are unlikely to consider any extra legislative issues.

“They will consider this bill a potential luxury,” he said. “Quality of work life is something to have after you have the job and income and some benefits, and I partially agree, but I think this is part of the abuse of the worker.”

Namie said the new book calls the anti-worker sentiment “macro-bullying,” a societal erosion of worker’s rights. He said despite public perception, even among workers, the American worker isn’t guaranteed many rights.

“Workers think a hostile work environment is illegal for everybody, that anti-discrimination rules pertain to everybody in all situations. They don’t, and that’s why we need the bill,” he said.

He said while lawmakers will be working on budget problems, it’s hard to convince them that a bully-free workplace is a monetary issue that costs employers and sends ill workers into the costly healthcare system.

“Originally, we will find some who are receptive, but to pass such a law takes most of the lawmakers in the middle with the time and mental space and energy to consider a bill like this,” Namie said. “Right now, with everybody hunkered down, it becomes survival against quality of life.”

###

You can read the original article here.

The story: Phyllis was a special needs teacher for seven years in the Dallas area before she was forced out of work by workplace bullies.

“I felt like I was in a combat zone,” Phyllis said. “I knew the moment I walked on that property, they had already made plans to make my day a living, whatever you call it, that day.” Phyllis said she was the target of an concerted effort to get her kicked off the job because she tried to get one of her students moved up from a special needs class to a regular classroom. Phyllis said her superiors increased her class size, made her workload unbearable and even tried to force her to withdraw previous grievances she filed against the school. Her experience with workplace bullying isn’t an isolated one.

Ron, who is a federal employee, said he too has been the victim of workplace bullying. “They keep picking on you and picking on you and they issue you discipline. They keep adding on the discipline until they finally try to get you removed from the job,” Ron said. “It affects my sleep, my home life, and it puts a stress on the whole family”.

Both Ron and Phyllis have stories all too familiar to Esque Walker, a workplace bully expert, who was once a victim herself. “Workplace bullying is the repeated, health harming mistreatment of an individual in the workplace,” Walker said.Walker said it is a real problem and it takes a toll on its victims. “People lose their lives because of it every day. It’s associated with a high rate of depression and suicide. They want to destroy your psychological well-being,” Walker said.

Walker also added the victims of workplace bullying are usually popular, smart and outgoing. They are a threat to managers who feel inferior. Walker likened workplace bullying to domestic abuse and said laws need to be passed to protect people in the workforce from superiors who bully.

Walker is pushing lawmakers to pass a healthy workplace bill that would establish guidelines to prevent bullying in the workplace, but she has yet to find a sponsor for it.” Until you have laws that govern workplace bullying, the same as you have that governs domestic violence, you will never have harmony in the workplace,” Walker said.

Quotes from the article we appreciate most:

“with bullying becoming front-page news across the nation, it is just a matter of time before the law adapts”

and

“it seems inevitable that some form of the HWB will become law, whether in New York or elsewhere, and that once the first state adopts an anti-bullying statute others will shortly follow.”

Read the entire original article, including case law examples illustrating how bullying is NOT covered by existing laws! We’ve always told employers this is true, but employers describe themselves as victims. They want no regulations and no legal liability no matter how severely they mistreat workers. Our Healthy Workplace Bill threatens only abusive employers. Good employers have nothing to fear.

Here is an excerpted version of the article.

For years the law has been stacked against an employee claiming that he or she was abused or bullied by a co-worker. Generally, the law offers no protection to such a victim as long as the alleged bully can show that his or her actions were not motivated by the victim’s status as a member of a protected class. Currently, there are no federal, state or local laws providing a cause of action for an individual subject to a non-discriminatory abusive work environment. However, with bullying becoming front-page news across the nation, it is just a matter of time before the law adapts. Since 2003, 17 states have considered legislation designed to protect employees from workplace bullying. Indeed, this year New York came very close to a floor vote on a bill that would provide a cause of action to an employee subjected to an abusive work environment.

Proponents of anti-bullying legislation contend that it is necessary given the prevalence of abusive conduct in the workplace. The proposed New York legislation noted that “between sixteen and twenty-one percent of employees directly experience health endangering workplace bullying, abuse and harassment” and that “[s]uch behavior is four times more prevalent than sexual harassment.” …

Existing Legal Framework

Currently, employers have little to worry about with respect to facing substantial liability as a result of workplace bullying. The existing legal framework provides very limited recourse to an employee who is bullied at work. While some types of harassment are outlawed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII’s reach is narrow. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on an individual’s race, sex, color, religion, or national origin.

It is well-settled that “Title VII does not prohibit all verbal or physical harassment in the workplace” but rather only discrimination because of race, sex, color, religion or national origin. …

Likewise, the extreme behavior that gives rise to the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress does not encompass most workplace bullying. In order to prove a claim for the intentional infliction of emotional distress a plaintiff must prove that the defendant acted intentionally or recklessly, the defendant’s conduct was extreme and outrageous, and the conduct caused severe emotional distress. Restatement (Second) of Torts §46.

Courts have found that extreme or outrageous conduct is “‘so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community’…but does not extend to ‘mere insults, indignities, threats, annoyances, petty oppressions, or other trivialities.’”  …

Legislation Campaign

Notably, the jury in the Raess case heard expert testimony on workplace bullying from Gary Namie, the co-founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the eradication of workplace bullying. The WBI’s Legislative Campaign division focuses on enacting anti-bullying legislation state-by-state. The WBI recruits state coordinators to introduce the Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB), drafted by Suffolk University Professor of Law David Yamada, to their local lawmakers. Thus, the campaign to pass an anti-bullying statute begins in each state with the same HWB language, although local lawmakers regularly make changes to the HWB as it is introduced and works its way through the legislative process.

The HWB provides legal redress for employees who are subjected to an abusive work environment, by allowing employees to sue both their employer and the alleged bully for monetary damages. The WBI contends that the bill is employer friendly since it sets a high standard for misconduct, requires proof of harm by a licensed health professional in order for an individual to collect damages, and protects employers with internal correction and prevention mechanisms from liability.

In 2003, California became the first state to introduce some form of the HWB. Subsequently, anti-workplace bullying legislation has been introduced in sixteen other states. In 2010, the New York State Senate passed the bill. However, the New York Assembly Labor Committee stalled the passage of this ground breaking legislation when it voted to hold the bill, rather than vote on it.

The New York bill, A 5414B/S 1823-B, establishes a civil cause of action for employees who are subjected to an abusive work environment. The bill defines an abusive work environment as “a workplace in which an employee is subjected to abusive conduct that is so severe that it causes physical or psychological harm to such employee, and where such employee provides notice to the employer that such employee has been subjected to abusive conduct and such employer after receiving notice thereof, fails to eliminate the abusive conduct.”

Abusive conduct is defined as “conduct, with malice, taken against an employee by an employer or another employee in the workplace, that a reasonable person would find to be hostile, offensive and unrelated to the employer’s legitimate business interests.” The severity, nature and frequency of the conduct should be considered in determining liability. …
The bill provides employers with an affirmative defense when the employer “exercised reasonable care to prevent and promptly correct the abusive conduct which is the basis of such cause of action and the plaintiff unreasonably failed to take advantage of the appropriate preventive or corrective opportunities provided.”    …

Therefore, it appears that we may be on the cusp of a new era of legislation and legal precedent targeted at preventing and punishing workplace bullying. Indeed, it seems inevitable that some form of the HWB will become law, whether in New York or elsewhere, and that once the first state adopts an anti-bullying statute others will shortly follow. The Mendez case, discussed above, should serve as a cautionary tale to employers about the potential for huge damage awards should such legislation be passed. In the interim, employers are faced with significant uncertainty with respect to how to deal with workplace bullying. We suggest that employers become proactive and take immediate steps to prevent workplace bullying. This will ensure that employers are better prepared to defend against a cause of action for workplace bullying.  …

Jason Habinsky is counsel and Christine M. Fitzgerald is an associate at Hughes Hubbard & Reed, New York office.

###

Read the entire original article

Bullies aren’t just kids in the playground anymore — they are also adults in the workplace, or lurking online.

As anti-bullying advocates try to push through new legislation at the state level, several new studies have found that bullying affects different people in different ways. In the workplace, bullying is more likely to target educated employees, while victims of online abuse are more likely to feel depressed and isolated.

An estimated 53.5 million Americans are reportedly bullied at work, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute.

The non-profit organization released their 2010 Workplace Bullying Survey this month based on interviews of over 6,000 adults in August, along with data comparing the recent survey with one they conducted in 2007.

“There are many myths and misconceptions about workplace bullying advanced by disbelievers and opponents,” said the institute’s research director Dr. Gary Namie. “One portrayal is that bullying affects only the uneducated, unskilled workers.”

The participants were asked about experiencing mistreatment, sabotage, verbal abuse, threatening conduct, intimidation or humiliation at work, with 11 percent of workers with a college degree — and 7 percent of those without — responding that they are currently bullied in the workplace.

“Note that the respondents with more formal education reported a higher bullying rate,” added Namie.  “Not having a college degree was associated with a higher denial of bullying rate. Myth busted.”

Bullying, according to the organization, is “mistreatment severe enough to compromise a targeted worker’s health, jeopardize her or his job and career, and strain relationships with friends and family. It is a laser-focused, systematic campaign of interpersonal destruction. It has nothing to do with work itself. It is driven by the bully’s personal agenda and actually prevents work from getting done. It begins with one person singling out the target. Before long, the bully easily and swiftly recruits others to gang up on the target, which increases the sense of isolation.”

Writing on the institute’s website, Namie says that workplace bullies are “narcissistic” and “defensive,” and often target people who are effective, popular and helpful on the job — but who also may not be subservient, or not “sufficiently political.”

Among students, a survey by the National Institutes of Health found that depression is high among 6^th to 10^th graders who have been bullied through computers or cell phones.

“Notably, cyber victims reported higher depression than cyber bullies or bully-victims, which was not found in any other form of bullying,” the study authors wrote in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

They also report that “unlike traditional bullying which usually involves a face-to-face confrontation, cyber victims may not see or identify their harasser; as such, cyber victims may be more likely to feel isolated, dehumanized or helpless at the time of the attack.”

Bullying has been in the news lately because of the rise of teen suicides and deaths within the LGBT community.

States such as New York and Massachusetts recently passed anti-bullying legislation to protect children in the public schools.

Namie of the Workplace Bullying Institute is also directing a program to put similar protections in place at the state level for workers, via the Healthy Workplace Bill.

The proposed law was drafted by the Boston-based legal scholar David Yamada — but while it has been introduced in 17 U.S. states, has yet to be passed in any.

In Canada, the province of Saskatchewan banned workplace bullying in October 2007 under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

VIDEO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmPBPEWnhRE

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.

The question asked: “Do you support or oppose enactment of workplace bullying laws that would protect all workers from what can be considered malicious, health-harming abusive conduct committed by bosses and co-workers?” This is the language of the HWB. Here are the results for the entire national sample as well as by political ideology and race.

For comparison, consider that the Sunday newspaper magazine, Parade, asked the same question in a July 18, 2010 article titled: “Workplace Bullying: Do We Need a Law?” The magazine’s online poll results found overwhelming support for a law — 92% yes.

According to a WBI Instant Poll posted on July 23, 2010, 96.8% of 252 online respondents stated their support for a workplace bullying law.

Readers will want to digest Suffolk Law Professor David Yamada’s thorough and thoughtful Labor Day 2010 analysis of the liberal, moderate and conservative features of the Healthy Workplace Bill. He is the bill’s author.

WBI Research Director, Gary Namie, PhD
© 2010, Workplace Bullying Institute

Workplace bullying was defined as “repeated mistreatment: sabotage by others that prevented work from getting done, verbal abuse, threatening conduct, intimidation or humiliation.”

In a separate survey, a representative sample of 4,210 respondents was asked about employer engagement in anti-bullying activities. The vast majority (79%) either were not sure or were certain that employers do little to nothing to address it. Remarkably, 21% believed that U.S. employers are currently addressing it through policies and enforcement.

Though the question specifically asked about an anti-bullying policy separate from harassment and violence policies, which most employers do have, one-fifth of respondents still believed that employers had additional procedures to stop bullying.

“This surprising result is probably wishful thinking by bullied individuals and their friends who want to believe that their employer cares about them,” says Dr. Gary Namie, WBI Director. “Similar studies in Scandinavian countries where anti-bullying laws began in the mid-1990′s find a much lower employer compliance rate.”

The positive attitude toward employers was further illustrated by 56% of respondents reporting confidence that American employers would voluntarily stop bullying without being mandated by law to do so. Only 32% disagreed, believing only a legal obligation would compel action.

Respondents were also asked whether they support or oppose workplace bullying laws like the ones that have been introduced in 17 states since 2003 by the Healthy Workplace Bill Campaign. In 2010, both the New York and Illinois Senates passed the bill. However it has not yet become law in any state.

Of the WBI-Zogby respondents, 64% supported having laws to protect workers from “malicious, health-harming abusive conduct” committed by bosses and co-workers (the specific language contained in the introduced bills). 23.8% opposed laws. Gary Namie concludes, “Clearly a majority of Americans want a law. This statistic will be given to lawmakers as proof of the popular appeal of such legislation.”

###

Contact:
Gary Namie, PhD
360-656-6630
info@workplacebullying.org

Note the correct spelling of his name Yamada, not Yamata.

There are some very important things they don’t tell you on career day. Chief among them is that there is a good chance that at some point during your working adult life you will have an abusive boss — the kind who uses his or her authority to torment subordinates. Bullying bosses scream, often with the goal of humiliating. They write up false evaluations to put good workers’ jobs at risk. Some are serial bullies, targeting one worker and, when he or she is gone, moving on to their next victim.

Bosses may abuse because they have impossibly high standards, are insecure or have not been properly socialized. But some simply enjoy it. Recent brain-scan research has shown that bullies are wired differently. When they see a victim in pain, it triggers parts of their brain associated with pleasure.

Worker abuse is a widespread problem — in a 2007 WBI-Zogby poll, 37% of American adults said they had been bullied at work — and most of it is perfectly legal. Workers who are abused based on their membership in a protected class — race, nationality or religion, among others — can sue under civil rights laws. But the law generally does not protect against plain old viciousness.

That may be about to change. Workers’ rights advocates have been campaigning for years to get states to enact laws against workplace bullying, and in May they scored their biggest victory. The New York state senate passed a bill that would let workers sue for physical, psychological or economic harm due to abusive treatment on the job. If New York’s Healthy Workplace Bill becomes law, workers who can show that they were subjected to hostile conduct — including verbal abuse, threats or work sabotage — could be awarded lost wages, medical expenses, compensation for emotional distress and punitive damages.

Not surprisingly, many employers oppose the bill. They argue that it would lead to frivolous lawsuits and put them at risk for nothing more than running a tight ship and expecting a lot from their workers. But supporters of the law point out that it is crafted to cover only the most offensive and deliberate abuse. The bill requires that wrongful conduct be done with “malice,” and in most cases that it has to be repeated. It also provides affirmative defenses for companies that investigate promptly and address the problem in good faith.

The New York state assembly is expected to take up the bill next year. At least 16 other states are considering similar bills, and some employment-law experts think antibullying legislation may have real momentum now.

Legislatures are not the only ones standing up to bullies. In 2008, the Indiana supreme court struck a blow against workplace bullying when it upheld a $325,000 verdict against a cardiovascular surgeon. A medical technician who operated a heart and lung machine during surgery accused the surgeon of charging at him with clenched fists, screaming and swearing. The formal legal claims were intentional infliction of emotional distress and assault, but the plaintiff argued it as a bullying case, and had an expert on workplace bullying testify at trial.

Ideally, employers should rein in abusive bosses on their own, but that rarely happens. Many bullies are close to powerful people in the organization and carefully target less powerful ones. When John Bolton was nominated to be ambassador to the U.N. by President George W. Bush, a former subordinate told the Senate that Bolton was a “serial abuser” and — in a phrase that has since entered the bullying lexicon — a “kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy.”

There are reasons workplace bullying may be getting worse now, including the bad economy. In good times, abused workers can simply walk out on a job if they are being mistreated. But with unemployment at around 9.5%, and five job seekers for every available job, many employees feel they have no choice but to stay put.

Another factor is the decline of organized labor. Unions were once a worker’s front-line defense against an abusive boss. If a supervisor was out of line, the shop steward would talk to him — on behalf of all of the workers. But union membership has fallen from 35% of the workforce in the 1950s to under 13% today, and some unions are less aggressive than they once were.

That leaves litigation. There seems to be a strong constituency for laws allowing workers to sue over workplace abuse. The vote on the Healthy Workplace Bill was bipartisan and not close: New York state senators favored it 45 to 16.

If states enact laws of this kind and lawsuits begin to be filed, juries are far more likely to sympathize with the bullied worker than the bullying boss — and damages awards could be large. There is one easy way for employers to head all of this off: get more serious about rooting out abusive bosses before serious damage is done.

###

Write a comment on the Time website (to counter the hard-heart idiots) or here.

Read the original article.

UPDATE: As of Thurs. July 22, 93% of those who voted want a law! To elected state & federal legislators: if you are looking for a “populist” thing to do to help your beleaguered constituents, turn your back on SHRM and the Chamber of Commerce and do something for the “small people” (aka, the real persons, not Supreme Court “persons,” the corporations.)

For those new to the Workplace Bullying Institute, visit our Healthy Workplace Bill Legislative Campaign website to see the history of the anti-bullying bill movement led by State Coordinators and citizen lobbyists just like you. Sign up to help in your state.

WBI counters the distortions

In the Erikson (Post) article: Our NY State Coordinator Mike Schlicht has it right about how many New Yorkers are bullied (relying on the national prevalence rate), but Nobile, the corporate attorney, implies that all 1.8 million will file a lawsuit. This is nonsense. Sexual harassment is illegal, but only a miniscule proportion (about 1% who suffer it) ever file a lawsuit. The hurdle for filing a suit under the Healthy Workplace Bill is high. Frivolous complaints will be filed only by the hopping mad, super wealthy workers. Do you know any? The second ungrounded opinion comes from the Business Council rep, Moran, who threatens that businesses would flee NY if employers are not allowed to abuse workers with impunity. Large employers already export jobs in search of cheap labor for no reasons related to their employees except that they are American and entitled to (a disgracefully low) minimum wage. Companies are in NY for a reason — education at great universities, skilled workers, family ties to the region, they are American. Bill S 1823B does not change those reasons. We have the same bill proposed in MA, NJ, VT and soon every state that borders NY. Where are they going to go? Americans also comprise the labor pool in those states. And NJ is more pro-worker than NY!

WBI counters the distortions

In the McMahon and Copland (Daily News) article: The “job killer” label is pure fear. Employers are job killers given the massive layoffs during the great recession. Bullies are job and career killers for the individuals they target. Bullies chase away the best and brightest who threaten them and the employer suffers from the talent drain. Professor David Yamada, author of the bill, gives a more comprehensive argument that our bill is “an equal opportunity job saver.” The authors of the Daily News article argue that everyone fired will have grounds to sue. Read the bill. Employers are protected when economic necessity, illegal or unethical conduct are grounds for uncontestable termination. Lazy opinion writers do their readers no favor.

Specifically, this legislation provides legal redress for employees who have been harmed psychologically, physically or economically by being deliberately subjected to abusive work environments; and it provides legal incentives for employers to prevent and respond to mistreatment of employees at work. This is the Workplace Bullying Institute Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB) that has been introduced in 16 other states. It was authored by Suffolk Law Professor David Yamada. The grassroots group NY Healthy Workplace Advocates has been the local catalyst for the many bills introduced in New York state since 2007.

“The social and economic well-being of the State is dependent upon healthy, safe, and productive employees,” said Senator Morahan.  “I want to thank all my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, who voted for this legislation today.  In particular, Senator George Onorato, Chairman of the Labor Committee, Republican Leader Dean Skelos, Majority Conference Leader John Sampson and Deputy Majority Leader Jeff Klein for helping secure passage of the legislation.”

“I became aware of the prevalence of abusive environments in the workplace when one of my constituents brought her situation at her place of employment to my attention.  It became apparent that legislation was needed to address the problem,” said Morahan.

“Workplace bullying, abuse and harassment bring with them a variety of very serious human and economic costs,” said Senator George Onorato, Chairman of the Labor Committee and co-prime sponsor of the legislation. “Abusive behavior can cause grievous harm to employees who are the victims of it, leading to all manner of health problems and, often, forcing them to leave their jobs to escape it.  In addition, it costs employers in terms of lost employee productivity, and other workplace problems.  By taking aim at abusive work environments, this legislation will protect employees from inappropriate behavior and help our businesses to become more productive and successful.” The bill passed Onorato’s committee on March 12, 2010.

“Mistreatment of employees in the workplace is a serious issue, but too often, workers have no recourse when they are subject to an abusive work environment,” said Senate Republican Leader Dean G. Skelos. “Senator Morahan’s legislation will help employees who have been harmed, physically, mentally or financially, and will encourage employers to do more to prevent and respond to this problem.”

“We are truly appreciative of Senator Morahan’s efforts which have culminated in the passage of vital legislation today in the New York State Senate,” said  New York Healthy Workplace Advocate State Coordinators Mike Schlicht and Tom Witt.

“On behalf of the workforce of our State, I call on my Legislative colleagues in the Assembly to pass this bill in their house,” said Senator Morahan.

“This is only the second state in the nation to have passed the HWB on a floor vote. Now it is up to the outgoing Chair of the Assembly Labor Committee, Susan John, who is not running for re-election, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to guide the bill to a successful Assembly vote,” said Gary Namie, WBI Director.  “Thanks to NYHWA, the bill has 48 Assembly co-sponsors. With a positive vote by June 21, the bill could be on the Governor’s desk and become the first law in the U.S. of its kind”

Anyone who supports the passage of the HWB into law, please follow instructions at the NY State page of the HWB website.

Retired auto dealer joins Healthy Workplace Bill movement

STEUBENVILLE – It’s not as long a journey from automobile dealer to citizen advocate if one is committed to a cause. The switch in John Smurda’s life came as a result of reading a book and considering what he’s seen in his own family over the years. Smurda, a city resident, is now a volunteer citizen advocate for Ohio to pass a bill offering legal remedies to targets of workplace bullying.

HEALTHY WORKPLACE EFFORT — John Smurda discusses his work as an advocate for the Healthy Workplace bill in Ohio. The Steubenville resident is a retired businessman who said he became involved in the effort for new laws to protect against workplace bullying after reading a book by one of the national leaders of the effort, Dr. Gary Namie. -- Paul Giannamore

Smurda said he read a book by Dr. Gary Namie, who, with his wife, Dr. Ruth Namie, has written “The Bully at Work.”
The Namies are professional educators – he with a doctorate in social psychology and she with a doctorate in clinical psychology. Ruth Namie experienced bullying in the workplace firsthand in the mid-1990s. She and her husband founded the Workplace Bullying Institute in the late 1990s as the Work Doctor website, now found as www.workplacebullying.org.

They have led efforts across the nation to have states enact anti-bullying measures to protect people who aren’t covered by the usual sexual harassment or anti-harassment policies and laws.

Smurda said he’s seen the effects of workplace bullying twice within his own family. He said he was fortunate never to have had to deal with the issue when he was one of the principals of the former J & J auto dealership in Toronto, which closed in late 2008.

“We had 25 employees,” he said. “They were a big family. It was the greatest group you could ever hope for. We all cared for other people. And that’s why this knocks me out.”

Smurda said he got in touch with the Namies and was asked to become an advocate for an anti-bullying Healthy Workplace bill in Ohio. So far, according to the healthyworkplacebill.org website, 17 states have introduced such bills since 2003. Smurda said hopes are that Ohio will be the 18th. No state has passed such a bill.

“Current laws do not apply when a person fails to fall into one of the protected classes,” he said.

Federal anti-discrimination and harassment policies focus on preventing harassment that is based on race, sex, religion or national origin, but offers no legal remedies when harassment is not based on those characteristics.

It’s also not about physical violence, which is prohibited by laws. Smurda said that’s where a healthy workplace bill helps.

“It’s the same in every situation. The bullies take aim at their targets. The bullies believe the world revolves around them and have a way of manipulating others into helping them,” he said. Smurda said the treatment involves blame for errors, criticism of ability and insults. It can be evidenced in slamming doors or exclusionary treatment in the workplace.

Businesses have policies against such treatment, but Smurda said targets often don’t want to report they’re being bullied because of fear of reprisal or job loss. Co-workers don’t get involved, he said, because they fear being shunned or becoming targets themselves. A Healthy Workplace bill isn’t about outlawing people who are merely jerks with bad behavior. For claims to be brought, the target has to prove actual health or psychological impact resulting from the maltreatment from a boss or co-worker.

The Healthy Workplace movement includes protections for employers. Smurda said he wouldn’t be involved in placing greater burdens on business as a businessman himself. “It protects the employer and punishes the bully,” he said.

Targets in every case that would find legal remedies under the law have become ill as a result of the bullying, experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder or anxiety. Targets leave their jobs or some commit suicide.
The Workplace Bullying Institute commissioned the Zogby polling organization, through a gift by the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention to survey Americans on workplace bullying.

The findings of the online survey of 7,740 adults, released in 2007, find 37 percent of workers say they have been bullied. Most bullies are bosses and about 60 percent of the bullies are men with 57 percent of the targets being women. The survey also found 71 percent of the female bullies target other women and 54 percent of male bullies target men.
Bullying is four times more prevalent than illegal discriminatory harassment, the survey found.

The survey found that, when employers are made aware of bullying that does not fall into the illegal discrimination category, some 62 percent did nothing. Some 18 percent of the respondents said the employer actually made the situation worse for the target.

Respondents said verbal abuse and threatening, intimidation, humiliation and hostility were most often the tactics, with abuse of authority and interference with work also prevalent.

The Workplace Bullying Institute did a non-scientific update with 422 respondents in 2009 in response to claims in the business press that employers were weeding out bullies as part of cuts made to respond to the recession. That survey found 31.3 percent of the bullying targets who responded lost their jobs by layoff, termination or quitting, while another 12.3 percent were off because of psychological injuries. In most cases, the employer had done nothing after learning of the bullying.

[See post to watch Flash video]

You can track progress of the Wisconsin Healthy Workplace Bill at our Legislative Campaign website.

The Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) launched the U.S. workplace bullying movement in mid-1997. Starting in 2001, WBI principals began lobbying for legislation as amateurs. The work has grown into a national network of volunteer Coordinators in 29 states with varying levels of advocacy experience. WBI directs the citizen lobbyists to unify the message. WBI provides Coordinators with training, materials and the text of the HWB.

Suffolk University Law Professor David Yamada authored the HWB for WBI in order to provide employees with an avenue for redress when health-harming abusive conduct is not addressed by Civil Rights laws. Additionally, the bill does not mandate employer action or government involvement. It does reward good employers with freedom from vicarious liability when they take proactive steps to correct and prevent severe bullying behavior. The only employers who should fear the law are the ones that rely upon abusive tactics to manage.

Though 16 states have introduced several versions of the HWB since the first California bill in 2003, no state yet has passed the bill into law.

Hospitals would become bully-free zones and bad-boss behavior prohibited in state statute under a bill that a legislative review committee on Tuesday earmarked for interim study.

Despite opposition to the bill by the head of the state Division of Risk Management, former district Judge Roger Livingston, counter testimony from disgruntled health-care workers who support HB224 was too compelling for lawmakers to ignore.

They heard and were given written accounts of ostensibly competent, caring medical providers being driven from their jobs and even out of the state by supervisors who induce stress in an already high-stress occupation. The hyper-patrolling and controlling oversight — which included employees having to ask to go the bathroom are far from uncommon and are adding injury to the insult in the form of serious mistakes and harm to patients, committee members were told.

Laura Sorensen, a registered nurse with critical care certification and a former Air-Med flight nurse and a state Emergency Nurse of the Year, said workplace bullying is the not the joke opponents try to make of it. She said that after immediately divulging to a supervisor that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 15 years ago, the University of Utah began a systematic effort to have her fired, effectively “disabling me well before I had any signs of being ‘crippled up’ by the disease.” She said U. attorneys immediately considered her a potential liability as a flight nurse and proceeded to keep her from working, despite her filing an Americans With Disabilities Act lawsuit and court-directed mediation in which she told U. lawyers all she wanted was her job back until her health literally — not potentially — precluded it.

Nurse Sharlene Watson said she was driven out of her labor and delivery job at the U. for delivering a baby before the attending doctor arrived and to ease an ongoing disagreement between her boss and another nurse. She was immediately placed on leave without pay. She said in subsequent hearings she was verbally and physically abused.

“People think government immunity doesn’t prevent actions in court, but I can tell you they do,” Watson said.

Livingston said if state employees feel aggrieved, “we have methods to ensure that we are as progressive and open and fair.”

He added that he didn’t want to come off as denigrating testimony before the committee, but said “in the strongest possible terms, this would be a giant step backward.”

To illustrate his point, he mentioned a 1977 citizen petition in Arizona against Daylight Savings Time in which a reason cited by signers was that “the extra hour of sunlight would burn their lawns.”

Dave Gessel, vice president of government relations and legal counsel for the Utah Hospital Association, said HB224 is “well-intended but off the mark,” noting that behavior at any workplace has never been made a cause of legal action. “This is a Grand Canyon change. To single out health care or go across that chasm is huge” in part because Utah is a right-to-work state in which 89 percent of all employees can be let go from their job for no good reason.

“Employers would see a problem and think they better fire that person right now,” he added. “This would backfire.”

This summer, lawmakers may study whether they can and should outlaw “an abusive work environment” in government-owned health care settings, such as the University of Utah.

Members of the House Health and Human Services weren’t ready to legislate against bad behavior, and instead recommended HB224 be studied.

Stephen Sandstrom, R-Orem, said the bill is aimed mainly at residency programs where there have been instances of supervisors targeting trainees with verbal abuse or behavior aimed at undermining their work, forcing them to quit.

Bill supporters noted current law doesn’t protect employees from such abuse unless the harassment is based on sex or race. They said intimidating behavior can psychologically harm employees and can lead to medical errors when providers are scared to speak up. A national accrediting agency now requires hospitals to have codes of conduct on such behavior.

But opponents, including the state’s risk manager, said it would be a vast departure from current law. And they said it would invite lawsuits, since it would be creating a new protected class of employees in what is now a right-to-work state.