By contrast, the respondents to the 2010 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey (n=4,210) reported a much different story about the recession’s impact. The large scientific (nationally representative) sample included lots of people who either deny bullying’s existence or have a limited experience with it.  Here is the comparison of results from the two studies.

2010 survey question: Has the bullying problem at your workplace changed since the recession (approx. Sept. 2008)?

2009 survey question: Did the bullying change since the economic downturn (Sept. 2008)?

The reader can see the striking difference experience with being bullied makes — 9% vs. 28% who believed that due to the recession, bullying worsened.

In addition to the sampling differences, there were slight variations in definitions used in the two surveys. For the national survey, we stated that: “For the purposes of this survey, workplace bullying is defined as the repeated mistreatment of an individual employee by a person or a group directed that takes the form of verbal abuse, behavior that is humiliating, threatening, intimidating, or sabotage of the targeted person’s work.” For the online 2009 survey, we defined bullying as: “sabotage that prevents work from getting done, verbal abuse, threatening conduct, intimidation, humiliation, or exploitation of a known vulnerability (psychological or physical).” This is the definition used by WBI and codified in the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill.

You can download the results of the Summer 2009 survey — The Economic Crisis and Bullying.

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

Recall the fact reported in a story at this website that 62% of all individual bankruptcies by Americans were due to medical costs that overwhelmed families. In other words, while Congress plays political games with health care reform, and the president refuses to design a new system “from scratch,” people are DYING. Underinsurance or the lack of insurance compounds the problems of bullied individuals driven from their jobs. Just when they are the sickest, they cannot get much-needed care. This is an unconscionable uniquely American disgrace.

Compounding the problem is that the poor are sliding into even greater depths of poverty. Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in her blog (and published in the NY Times on 6/14/09) the rate of blue collar unemployment is 3 times higher than the white collar variety.

People are doubling and tripling up and couch-renting after losing their houses. The overcrowding may be causing a spike in domestic violence. Women are turning to stripping. People are urban hunting — squirrels, rabbits, raccoons — and eating food past their sell-by dates acquired at “food auctions.”

All of this at the same time that Goldman Sachs in 2009 is paying the largest bonuses to its richest employees in its history thanks to largesse from the US Treasury engineered by Paulson and now Geithner. (Originally reported by the way in a British newspaper, not a US one.)

Why does this country not understand an obligation to take care of its own people? As Katrina Vanden Heuvel wrote, can we please stop the illusion of bipartisanship that prevents the federal government from being a problem solver?

By Tali Arbel
Associated Press Business Writer
Newsday
June 30, 2009

BULLY WATCH: The recession is creating a “blank check” for office bullies, said one employee advocate.

The downturn’s layoffs – job rolls have shrunk by 6 million since the recession’s start – may make a bad situation worse for victims, said Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute, an advocacy group.

Namie is the author of the “The Bully at Work.” It was originally published in 2000, with an updated version released this June.

The “absolute control of an employer is more apparent in a recession,” he said. That means workers are feeling the heat, as the bulk of workplace harassment cases involve superiors taunting their employees, he said.

“People are more stressed because there’s no escape,” he said. While previously employees could jump to another job when the verbal abuse, humiliation, career sabotage or intimidation he defines as bullying got to be too much, a new job is harder to find during a recession.

Namie’s Institute is pushing states to adopt legislation defining abusive conduct in the workplace and setting guidelines for employee behavior and possible litigation. The federal government currently prohibits harassment based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability and age.

His advice for those who feel harassed:

- Understand that abusive behavior – invading someone’s space with intent to intimidate or calling the person names – isn’t just rude. “It’s not inadvertent, it’s not accidental,” Namie said. Recognize someone else’s actions as a problem that’s hurting you.

- Try to get sick leave time, he said. Often workplace bullying goes on for a long time, and can even cause stress disorders for targets.

- Build an economic case against the bully. Has there been high turnover or absenteeism? Is there low morale? Has productivity sagged due to a tense, inefficient atmosphere?

“You have to make the argument that the bully’s too expensive to keep,” Namie said. Take this case to the highest-level person in your company that doesn’t have a personal connection to the source of harassment.

- If you can, look for another job. Getting away from the bully might be the easiest way to resolve the problem.

The basis for claiming that the recession is exacerbating workplace bullying can be found in the WBI June 2009 study results.

The complete description of our advice for bullied targets can be found here.

This article also appeared in the Chicago Sun Times, Dallas Morning News, Miami Herald, Contra Costa (CA) Times, Cincinnati Enquirer, Birmingham (AL) News, Mississippi Sun-Herald, Lakeland (FL) Ledger, St. Petersburg (FL) Times, Evansville (IN) Courier & Press, Seattle HeraldNet