In states where there are genuinely dire financial straits, the governors are blaming unions. Really?  Why do we have such collective amnesia? How gullible is the American public? Remember the investors who ripped off the world and mortgage borrowers and allowed us saps to absorb the losses? And not one has gone to jail for it (read Matt Tiabi’s new article).

And so the pattern is repeated in every bullying scenario. Bullies cost the employer, corporate or government, tons of cash that the employer whines they cannot afford to spare. Yet, they keep the bully on payroll while the losses mount from undesirable turnover, absenteeism, presenteeism, workers’ comp, disability insurance, and a damaged reputation as the worst place to work. Bullies are too expensive to keep, but it’s about power and cozy relationships between executive sponsors and their favorite sons and daughters. It’s never about the money.

Employers have unchecked power over non-unionized employees. Whatever dribbles of democracy and employee participation that happen are determined unilaterally by the employer (the owner or highest-level executive). If sharing does not suit him or her, employees are told to hold on, shut up and be glad you have work at all.

Driving employer rights is the doctrine of “employment at will” adhered to in the U.S. as if the courts had ruled on it (they did not, read this to learn the deliberately distorted history). Business sold this notion as if it were bidirectional. Employers can put you on the street for no cause. Employees can dump their employers and put themselves on the street. See, both have “free will.” Nonsense!

If you are prone to magical thinking, you might believe that all it takes to combat bullying (mistreatment by the employer or its agent, managers) is the collective effort by concerned co-workers who witness the events. Yes, in your dreams you see the heroic target in the boss’s threshold backed by throngs of agitated and supportive peers. In reality, chances are better that only a breeze will be behind our hero at the door when left to fight alone.

The abandonment of bullied targets is not fantasy. It is reality. We have surveyed targets and looked closely at the issue. In less than 1% of cases do co-workers provide support as solid and comprehensive in the above fantasy. There are many reasons to account for this lack of courage. Most explanations come from the field of social psychology. Just this month, there was an article describing the bystander non-intervention effect. And I could lecture on several others. Suffice it to say, the “F” word drives it all. Fear of being the lone supporter, fear of botching the help, fear of being pushed away by the target whose shame makes him want to be left alone, fear of incurring the bully’s wrath and being next.

So, how do workers in the 21st century achieve some sort of power balance with employers? Will Facebook and Twitter accomplish parity with corporations? Some may think so, but why have we given up on Unions? More in a moment about that. But first let’s see what 313 bullied targets who completed the first 2011 WBI Instant Poll thought about the role for unions.

The question:  “Given the current assaults on workers by employers, what role, if any, do you see for unions to address workplace bullying?”

The responses and percentages:

- Unions are more necessary than ever to protect worker health and safety. Employers’ power must be checked.  .4728
- Everyone should have the option to join a union if he or she wishes.   .2396
- Unions are unnecessary. They are no more trustworthy than are employers.  .2396
- The contemporary worker and workplace are rarely suited for unions.  .04792

Results of WBI Jan 2011 Instant Poll

About three-quarters of targets still believe that unions have a positive role to play and want to have the option to join or not. With a new Congress that took power in 2011, it is unlikely that Federal legislation to make joining unions easier will ever pass into law.

However, the most important finding from this small sample survey is that 24% do not trust their unions any more than their employers. This is the reality we hear from callers and what we see when we go on-site. I distinguish this distrust from a negative public stereotype about unions fostered by corporations and media (only 5% adopted that view). The distrust captured here is from people who have probably asked their unions for help with bullying situations and been rebuffed. Their unions did no more for them than HR. It is based on real experiences.

How could unions be so feckless about workplace bullying?

Four principal explanations come to mind:

1) Unions officers rise in the ranks based on their ability to fight and be adversarial (good to win victories for the union’s members) and do not want any curbs on their actions with anyone else, whether it is with management or with other members. In other words, they might be intimidators and want to stay that way without interference from a new company policy or a future law.

2) Unions are organizations, too. The bureaucratic mindset can take over. People get defensive for the organization and show less compassion for the people the organization is supposed to serve. Some unions have a low service threshold. They don’t care about helping members.

3) Too many unions have been co-opted by “partnership” talk with employers. They want to get along and ignore their members’ needs. This doesn’t mean there is corruption in every instance. Unions have been forced into concessions by scheming, but cash-rich employers for years. Employers threaten to shutter the business and move it offshore if pensions aren’t abandoned or health insurance co-pays aren’t increased, etc. In other words, unions have been whipped into submission. Survival is the operating mode. Concern over quality of worklife issues seems unimportant.

4) Unions can be great when the bully is a non-member, typically a manager.  But when bullying is member-on-member, most unions are paralyzed. They erroneously feel compelled to defend both the abusive and abused member. In reality, the responsibility is to represent, never to defend.

None of these reasons are to be used to defend hapless, ineffective unions. However, if unions are to regain trust of their members, each of the above four issues must be confronted honestly and reversed.

Our work has expanded to offer options for unions to serve their bullied members. We have had marvelous union officials attend WBI University to take back to their unions new ways to deal with bullying. In fact, in late 2011, WBI will offer a special Unions-Only University to increase the number of wise member-supporting unions out there.

Stephen Colbert's history of his "anti-union" stance

PLAY THE VIDEO CLIP — Pay special attention to the nitrogen cycle explanation of work!

Unions & Bullying

Guest Podcast: Carol Fehner, union activist, former union rep, lifelong bullybuster (and WBI affiliate), retired federal worker

Learn what bullied targets should do to get the union to pay attention.

Download Podcast 8 (in .mp3 format)

Here are 3 examples from May-June, 2009 seminar marketing to HR.

“When Employees Strike Back”
“Banish Bullies and their Lawsuits”
“Make Unions Irrelevant”

1) Hyped sales-oriented headline for a seminar “When Employees Strike Back”

Rationale given: “The number of retaliation claims against employers skyrocketed to record 32,690 in fiscal year 2008, resulting in more than $111 million in monetary awards.”

HR skills to acquire: “Learn how to avoid damaging retaliation jury awards”

This is mythical because retaliation claims by employees can be filed only after original claims of discrimination were answered by employer retaliation. You complain that you were discriminated against — sexual harassment or racial discrimination or age discrimination or your disability caused them to mistreat you — and the sham HR “investigation” concludes no wrongs were done. The employer enabled the harassment to happen in the first place! On top of that insult, the employer demotes you, punishes you in some way or fires you for daring to insist on your dignity. So, you can file a retaliation claim.
Retaliation is the employer, often with HR’s guidance, striking down the employee a second time. How can it be characterized as employees striking back? Funny, if it was not a seminar taught by an attorney helping HR keep complaining employees in their place.

2) Hyped sales-oriented headline for a seminar “Banish Bullies and their Lawsuits”
[This is our favorite.]

Actual title of the attorney-led seminar: “Workplace Shootings, Domestic Violence, and Bullying: New Challenges and Legal Threats for Employers”

Rationale given: “More than 71 million American workers are victims of bullying at work, according to a recent study by the Workplace Bullying Institute.” (Wrong! It’s 54 million who have directed experienced bullying. The 71 million includes witnesses. They found the WBI-Zogby survey statistics but can’t cite them correctly.)

“New pending legislation in 16 states that prohibit bullying in the workplace and what these laws could mean for employers” (Wrong again! Here, they cite the history of the WBI-Legislative Campaign which has had 16 states since 2003 with some version of our anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill. In 2009, 12 states had active legislation. And they did not bother to mention that the “toughest” versions of the bill do not carry a mandate requiring employers to do anything. They only get the chance to avoid being sued if they create policies and faithfully enforce them — something they should be doing as good business practice voluntarily. Again, too tough for corporate attorneys to read accurately.)

The seminar contents focuses on workplace violence and domestic violence intruding into the workplace and the security risks they pose. The reference to bullying was limited to coverage of “bully bosses” and the legal liabilities they bring to any organization.” Note that they used bullying as a hot topic sales gimmick.

The presenter is an attorney, author of Workplace Catastrophes: An Employer’s Guide to Workplace Violence, Terrorism and Natural Disasters.

If WBI dared to associate bullying with terrorism, we’d be banished. It would imply that employers hire terrorists to do their bidding as bullies. But evidently it’s OK for employers to brand employees they don’t like terrorists.

3) Hyped sales-oriented headline for a seminar “Make Unions Irrelevant”

Actual seminar title: “Minimize the Impact of EFCA and Unions with Powerful HR Communications”

(EFCA, Employee Free Choice Act, is the proposed federal legislation making union organizing easier, the first new labor law in over 30 years in the U.S.)

For this training, the outline of its content is especially revealing (and funny):

- “Communication techniques to win the hearts and minds of your employees by championing your organization’s sound policies and benefits” (Yea, right. Loyalty in exchange for policies that are not enforced and benefits that are disappearing.)

- “Specific internal communications to demonstrate why unions are irrelevant” (This is the union-busting industry’s best seller. It’s the mandated meetings when union organizers announce they want the employees to vote on having a union.

- “How to establish a first line of defense by monitoring the Internet for signs of organizing activity and chatter about your organization — because it all starts online” (The same people who want to win hearts and minds will conduct surveillance, just in case.)

- “How to overhaul supervisory communications immediately, so your supervisors can become advocates for management, listening posts, and experts in interpersonal relations” (This is a very narrow definition of communications skills. Listening is for surveillance purposes only and then only to report to higher ups what is heard and who is affiliating with whom. Are we clear here? It’s snitching.)

- “The grassroots nature of union communications, which focus on emotive language and an emphasis on people over profits” (Yes, that dastardly emphasis by people on people is grassroots by nature, union-driven, and employee advocacy must be struck down.

Readers will find WalMart’s categorization of which employees are “union-prone” equally illuminating.)

Also relevant to union prevention is the report by Kate Bronfenbrenner at Center for Economic Policy and Research. Employers more than doubled their use of anti-union tactics against employees attempting to form unions between 1999 and 2003. Sixty-three percent of employers use mandatory one-on-one, anti-union meetings with employees. Further, 57 percent of employers threatened to close the workplace, 47 percent of employers issued threats to slash benefits and wages, while 34 percent of employers fired workers during union organizing drives. Read the full May 20, 2009 report – No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing

So you see from these three examples, HR is about helping management communication focusing on profits and snitching. Nothing about HR need focus on employee rights, dignity at work, employee safety and health. HR works for the employer and must keep the corporate mission in mind – profits at the expense of people. No bleeding hearts need apply for HR.

G. Namie

So tell your HR story here. Please comment.

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