TOKYO (Kyodo) — A government panel studying measures to combat bullying at work recommended Monday that harassment by peers and subordinates be included in definitions of power harassment in the workplace.

In the government’s first proposal to define power harassment, often associated with abuse of power by bosses, the panel said in its report that power harassment could occur not only between people in different hierarchical positions but when there are gaps in expertise in specialized fields such as information technology.

The report, compiled by a working group of the labor ministry’s round-table conference, which was launched last July amid increased reports of harassment in the workplace, said power harassment is an “act that goes beyond the appropriate scope of work and inflicts mental/physical suffering or deteriorates the work environment.”

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry plans to reinforce measures against power harassment at work in fiscal 2012 starting April, including conducting a survey on the matter.

The number of consultations related to bullying or harassment at work brought to the attention of the ministry’s regional labor departments across the country has increased from about 6,600 cases in fiscal 2002 to around 40,000 in fiscal 2010.

The report said there are six types of power harassment — physical attacks such as assault, mental attacks such as threats, ignoring or leaving someone out of the loop, burdening someone with excessive work, deliberately giving someone very little work to do and prying into someone’s personal affairs.

The working group determined there is a need to expand the definition of power harassment as it found from interviews with companies and the examination of litigation that there are a growing number of cases in which workers are continually ignored by peers and where younger employees well-versed in IT harass people in more senior positions who are less knowledgeable.

But it also recommended that each workplace discuss problems because the definitions may not apply across the board.

Based on the working group’s report, the round-table conference, which also includes the participation of experts, is scheduled to compile a final report around the end of March.

via Panel says bullying by peers, subordinates also power harassment – The Mainichi Daily News.

What does official Washington say about the recession’s impact? Mostly that things are getting better because banks and investment houses reported record profits last quarter. Recovery is underway. The one nagging problem is that it is a “jobless recovery.” To hell with the quarter of the population looking for jobs that will never materialize or working for peanuts in demeaning jobs for wages that cannot keep a family afloat. Where is our leaders’ compassion for people suffering?

Annie Lowrey writing for the Washington Independent (Death and Joblessness, 8/17/10) explored in depth anecdotal tales of suicide and hopelessness at the website Unemployed Friends. She interviewed a CDC spokeswoman who timidly said that “more studies” are needed to understand the link between economic strain (I say catastrophe) and risk factors for suicide. Some economists are studying the link between joblessness and suicide. Despite the lagging social science research on the topic, it seems intuitively clear that once a person’s identity is taken from her or him, and the ability to support one’s family is lost, it is easy for serious emotional destabilization to follow.

School suicides related to bullying always grab headlines. Sometimes, they result in state laws, like in Massachusetts following the Phoebe Prince suicide. Without a doubt, suicides are a cry for help from young people. Schools are often too poor to have licensed psychologists available anymore. The opportunity to prevent is lost simply for budget reasons. Budgets reflect organization values. To ignore the message, as schools do, is to risk becoming a hardened institution incapable of empathy. How could it not adversely affect learning, the core mission?

Serial suicides at Foxconn, the Taiwanese employer hiring and exploiting Chinese workers on behalf of American high tech companies like Apple, also made headlines for a while. The story behind the story was that working conditions were inhumane in many ways including the prohibition of worker-to-worker contact on the shop floor. The employer eventually did raise salaries to be equivalent to rates workers once made only with overtime. But it is unlikely that production floor conditions were modified. Non-unionized workers lack the voice to demand a psychologically healthy workplace in any country, including the U.S.

Noteworthy U.S. workplace suicides

The 2010 University of Virginia Kevin Morrissey suicide grabbed headlines because his surviving sister dared to suggest that her brother’s boss had tormented him for 3 years. One journalism ethics professor suggested that suicide stories are taboo in the media because victims tend to be flawed, broken people.

Jodie Zebell was a conscientious 31 year old Wisconsin mammographer who was initially bullied by health clinic co-workers who resented her skill. The supervisor joined in. She took her own life months later in 2008.

Marlene Braun was an environmentally oriented doctoral scientist working her dream job for the Bureau of Land Management in California. She inherited a new boss with a bachelor’s degree and the political mandate to violate land stewardship ethics. He resented her skill, knowledge and ongoing relationships with everyone involved with protecting the land. She committed suicide in 2005.

Unfortunately the failure to report suicides keeps hidden several compelling reasons to change institutions that can drive an otherwise sane person to take her or his own life when there is no perceived way out.

Massacres, not Suicides

The American way of dealing with seemingly unsolvable personal and economic problems seems to be to direct violence toward others. According to one study conducted after the September 2008 beginning of the recession, there has been a 73% rise in domestic violence cases due to “financial issues.” State budget cuts are depriving women of support in dealing with partner violence when funding for shelters, sexual assault, and other social services.

And in a more familiar headline-grabbing style, a massacre occurred at a small firm in Connecticut this summer. It is safe to expect more to come in the future.

The challenge is for Americans and American media to recognize, and to not ignore, suicides and the underlying organizational causes that contribute to those decisions. It’s time to stop automatically assigning violence victims (and suicide is inwardly directed lethal violence) sole responsibility for the myriad of conditions that led up to suicide. Yes, the decision was ultimately the individual’s to make. However, suicide is not a snap, impulsive decision. It is the culmination of a series of negative events that led to the hopelessness. And like a victim of abuse, the greatest harm comes from prolonged, unremitting exposure to stress. Psychosocial stressors are not imagined. They are part of the environment — family, workplace, society — and external to the affected individual.

Causation is always a mix of external and internal factors. It is never completely the result of an individual’s personality. But much work remains to convince the public and media who are content with simple one-sided explanations that the mostly invisible situational/environmental/external factors contribute mightily, often outweighing personality as predictors.

Suicide is a social marker, an indication, that the society is mistreating its people while offering few ways to heal or to discover alternatives. Those who choose suicide are the “canaries in the coal mine” early readers of a toxic world gone awry.

We owe a great deal to the brave, desperate souls who took their own lives. To enoble their decisions, we must learn what they were trying to tell us through the ultimate sacrifice.