What attempts do Targets of workplace bullying make in order to have employers step in and resolve the situation? Do these attempts stop the abuse, or does it continue unabated?

Take the 2012 Workplace Bullying Online Survey

EVERYTHING we accomplished in 2011 was because of our talented staff, allied professionals and volunteers who loaned us their particular expertise.

No one at WBI does just one thing; all of us have multiple roles. New hires, Sean Lunsford and Daniel Christensen, the comforting voice callers to WBI first hear, joined Dave Phillips, our technical guru, and Jessi Eden Brown, the WBI professional coach. Sean is a techie himself, with a degree in computer science, but will serve primarily as the newest consultant on our team, with training and certification in workplace bullying from us.

The WBI technical trio — Dave, Daniel, Sean:

• redesigned, modernized and consolidated our family of 7 principal websites in 2011 with WBI as the portal site

• programmed our own online survey data collection website so that bullying prevalence can be gathered for any organization

• posted several Instant Polls and their results throughout the year

• produced training DVDs for employers (one 2 hr. video for managers, one 1 hr. video to show to employees)

• produced a DVD for bullied individuals chock full of advice from the team of WBI experts

• maintained two interactive forum websites, one of which relies on our volunteer administrator, C.A.

• maintained private websites for legislative campaign Coordinators and alumni of Workplace Bullying University

Thanks to allied professionals, Dr. Matt Spencer and Greg Sorozan, we were able to:

• design and deliver the first Workplace Bullying University (Sept) solely for Union officers (Greg Sorozan, LCSW, NAGE national officer, was co-faculty)

• educate K-12-related associations and organizations with the help of consultant Matt Spencer, Ed.D. as part of our Workplace Bullying in Schools project

Our marvelous network of volunteer State Coordinators working to enact the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill:

• grew to a group of over 70 nationwide, covering nearly 40 states

• garnered publicity for the HWB via TV appearances in New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Massachusetts, and Virginia (watch on the WBI YouTube channel, Legislative Campaign playlist)

• were able to have 12 states carry 18 versions of the HWB simultaneously

• engineered co-sponsorship of the Assembly bill in New York by 74 Assemblymembers!

• staged a compelling committee hearing for the Massachusetts bills in July

Thanks to tireless wordsmithing help from Jessi Brown, Ruth and Gary finished their third book:

• this one for employers — The Bully-Free Workplace: Stop Jerks, Weasels & Snakes from Killing Your Organization — published in May by Wiley.

Finally, thanks to too much time in airports with our groping TSA (now unionized, go AFGE) friends:

• we reached several audiences with speeches and workshops at employer, government agency, hospital, university and union meetings with the introductory message about workplace bullying

• we went on-site at more employers than ever with our industry-defining process to prevent and correct workplace bullying

• Dr. Gary met an increased demand for expert witness services in litigation by both defense and plaintiff attorneys seeking accountability for bullying.

The new year of helping people begins Tues. Jan. 3

First, let me say Dr. Harper, an anthropologist by training, and I, a social psychologist, probably have much in common. The difference is that she came through a horrific academic experience personally. Dr. Ruth Namie bore the brunt of that direct experience for our family; my experience was vicarious. For that reason, I am unwounded have necessarily been the spokesperson. Second, when unhealed wounded veterans of the bullying wars go public (as some of the more brazen critics of WBI do frequently), they can set back the movement with agendas narrowly focused on themselves. Harper’s injuries may not yet be resolved. She makes some silly and downright incorrect claims. I will reply to her Dec. 15 essay in italics.

Top Ten Reasons to Rethink Anti-Bully Hysteria

by Janice Harper

In previous essays I’ve discussed some of my concerns with the use of the bully label, the failure to distinguish between workplace and schoolyard bullying, and the need to distinguish workplace bullying from workplace mobbing. Now, as the year comes to a close and top ten lists rise like hit songs on a pop chart, I’d like to provide my own top ten reasons for rethinking the current anti-bully hysteria.

1. In the understandable rush to eradicate mean-spirited and aggressive people in the workplace, there is a tendency to move from anti-bully to pro-mobbing and encourage people to gang up and eliminate anyone labeled a bully.

Eradication of bullying is the goal, not of bullies. Targets do not suddenly convert to revenge-seekers who team up to bring down those who attacked them. Most individuals skulk away quietly shrouded in shame and secrecy just hoping to move on. Not sure who advises this. Certainly not us at WBI.

2. As awareness about bullying behavior grows, so too does the hysteria surrounding it, so that once a person is accused they are assumed to be guilty and vilified, regardless of their actual behavior or intent.

In the absence of company policies with full enforcement provisions and laws that would indict people in a criminal manner, there is no official sanctioning forum that labels people as “bullies.” In the American society where we are co-located, only child abusers (think Jerry Sandusky) are guilty and vilified without regard to due process. Business frauds who cheat old ladies are forgiven. Jack Abramoff writes a book on how to buy lawmakers. Sports heroes go to prison and return to contracts worth millions. Exactly what “bullies” are vilified? Steve Jobs, the deity? What you say, Janice, does not currently happen.

3. Even if a person does exhibit “bullying” behaviors, they are operating in the context of a specific organizational culture; the anti-bully focus is on the individual, not the organizational dynamics that might foster it.

Couldn’t agree more. We have tried unsuccessfully with two publishers have our book titles include “bullying” rather than “bully,” but neither cooperated. Our book for organizations to read about bullying decries the focus on the individual. This again is the experience in individualistic societies — anthropology told me so.

4. By failing to distinguish interpersonal bullying from collective mobbing, much of the advice given to targets of workplace aggression may escalate their suffering by provoking management’s retaliation and transforming bullying to mobbing.

The canard of mobbing vs. bullying was old 15 years ago when we started, and newcomers to the field like yourself seem to have to rediscover it and share the learning as if it’s new. Though Heinz Leymann died before he could attend our first and only US conference back in 2000, his representative did. She had no qualms about using the term bullying. She was a patient of his in Violen. As the leading proponent of the phrase workplace bullying in the U.S., it is safe to say that WBI has always said that bullying is a multiple-perpetrator phenomenon. End of “dispute.” We defer to Ken Westhues’ materials and arguments about the distinctions. When you use mobbing, you sound paranoid.

As for a focus on bullying (the systemic reinforcement of negative conduct) vs. bullies (the individualistic personality approach), that is another false accusation about the movement (hysteria, as you deem it). The press focuses on bullies. Book publishers fight the term “bullying” in book titles. But smart researchers and practitioners all focus on the former. You need to read the pages in the books, and not stop at perusal of just the covers.

5. Workplace bullying includes a power dynamic that is absent in schoolyard bullying, and although the processes are very similar, their differences are significant. The two forms of interpersonal aggression should be discussed with different terminology, strategies and objectives.

6. The “bully” focus tends to minimize group psychology, looking for convenient scapegoats and exempting others from responsibility when their aggression is collective.

RE: Points 5 & 6. I resent an anthropologist calling the extensive work done in this country by social psychologists on the topic to be somehow devoid of group dynamics. Colleagues Loraleigh Keashly and Joel Neuman were the only two brave souls doing this work back in 1997 (and before). And if you more carefully read what proponents in the movement say you would see it is well grounded in organizational models and processes. Those of us actually working with employers do much more than is known by the press. However, we have written books about it. So, you need to read more.

7. Just as “bullies” are viewed as inherently volatile and bad, targets are viewed as inherently passive and good, and typically advised they are morally superior and did nothing to contribute to the aggression. Such views preclude any possibility of behavioral changes for anyone involved, and flies in the face of human psychology.

You disqualify yourself as an outside observer of the phenomenon when you copy the provocative victim theory, commit the fundamental attribution error, and blame abuse victims for their own fate. Keep your academic perspective on this one. You may have been mobbed, but presumably not abused.


There is a morality play afoot. Don’t make the mistake of siding with the ones who initiate abuse. The parallel is to domestic violence. If one equivocates and stands equally with the abuser and abused, that person has lost her moral compass and right to distinguish right from wrong. Not ALL targets are saints, but if you worked with nearly 7,000 of them as we have at WBI, you wouldn’t perpetuate gibberish about them being equal to their assailants.

8. Too much of the focus on bullies has become associated with a single political perspective, namely liberal Democrats, even though interpersonal aggression affects a diversity of political interests.

Again read, read, read. Visit the national site for the Healthy Workplace Bill. There you can see the political party affiliation of legislators brave enough to sponsor an anti-bullying bill. At least three parties are represented. Republicans are not a itsy bitsy minority, either. As far as labeling, I’m not sure liberal democrats exist today.


However, your point is important in another, more profound perhaps unintended, way. Abuse in organizations is political. It derives its support from those in power. Rather, than dem vs. repub, it’s executives and bullies vs. those who came to their jobs to work. There is a partition, just not along the lines you describe so glibly.

9. Aggressive behavior in the workplace does indeed damage people’s lives and livelihoods, yet by calling for the elimination of workers labeled bullies, encouraging gossip and sabotage of anyone accused of bullying, and making anonymous reports against alleged “bullies,” workplace aggression has the potential to increase.

Who calls for the elimination of the bullies? Most of them will stop when their employers dare to challenge and expose them. They keep their jobs and move on. Who would ever call for anonymous reports against others? You must be reading the work of HR and “career” experts. We see you are associated with some newcomers to the field who profess an “expertise” but know little more than a bullied target. Just living the experience does not make one an expert, nor does publishing an academic journal article, or training in an academic field related tangentially to the topic. But it’s America. If you say you are an expert, you are treated that way by a lazy media.

10. The rhetoric is very negative and exclusionary, rather than focusing on how workplaces and other organizations can become more compassionate and humane toward others.

Interpersonal aggression is indeed a serious problem, and any form of aggression in our workplaces, schools and other organizations merits attention and remedies. But how we view the problem will shape how we address it. And as we move closer to ideological orthodoxy in how we approach it, all I see is an even bigger problem in the making.

You are a naive angel to think that eradication of truly destructive behavior begins with a focus on the positive through HR-type fads of the month: “employee engagement” “visionary management” “purposeful work” “ethical behavior” etc. You haven’t worked either as a consultant or manager enough to know what it takes to right a large ship sinking from destructive action by the few. Take the high road. You are young. But eventually you will learn how organizational default to the lowest ethical level, not aspire to the highest. And certainly not in the contemporary world of multinational for-profit firms that universities (like the host of your personal misery) emulate.

###


My post-article observations:

We all await the publication of your own book, which your series of articles is no doubt meant to pre-promote. But we expect more than tales from the trenches by a wounded warrior whose perceptions have been distorted by horrific experiences. Too many newcomers to the field are so wounded they cannot separate their own injuries and resentments from them to see clearly what needs to be done.

Methinks that you will be a positivist, pollyanna, equivocator. You could use the moniker “Dr. FeelGood.” HR will love you. But your work will not help those abused at work. And your insistence on some of the principles you have espoused above will get you press coverage because you pose no threat to organizations that actually originate and sustain the conduct to which you were subjected. You will be seen as reasonable and corporate-friendly — the goal of all newcomers. You will be very TV-friendly. But will you be intellectually honest to audiences (and more importantly, to yourself, true to your self-perception)?

As for us, we choose to tell truths, side with the abused, and risk not doing business with those too frightened to do what it really takes to change their toxic organizations.

Janice, you live 100 miles from us. Come visit. We’d love to convert you to a champion for the cause rather than an apologist for abusers (part of the hysteria machine). Come see the world through the WBI perspective. Our door is open.

Gary Namie
WBI Director

About a third of the U.S. workforce has fallen victim to workplace bullying. Learning to mitigate the problem means creating a more open work environment and crafting a stern anti-bullying policy.

The image of the schoolyard bully is heavily ingrained in our culture. Name a television show centered on American youth within the last half century, and it’s more than likely that at least one episode will be dedicated to the smaller, scrawnier kid doing his very best to avoid — or in some instances, defeat — the intimidating figure.

While the notion of the big, bad bully has been spotlighted in a number of television shows and movies, the practice in real life is undeniably serious. At the school level, instances of bullying have been attributed with causing a range of societal harms: absenteeism, violence, youth suicide and the like.

Although constant attention is given to youth-related bullying at schools, the less-talked-about form of bullying is that which occurs in the workplace.

According to a 2010 survey from the Workplace Bullying Institute, a research firm and consultancy on the subject, 35 percent of U.S. workers — or an estimated 53.5 million Americans — have experienced some form of bullying in the workplace, while another 15 percent claimed to have witnessed it.

“[It’s] epidemic; however, it is still a primarily un-discussable topic in organizations, and that’s why so many people are driven out in silence and without acknowledgement,” said Gary Namie, the director of the Workplace Bullying Institute and a trained social psychologist and business consultant.

Different from workplace harassment, which is generally considered a form of illegal discrimination, bullying is “often directed at someone a bully feels threatened by,” according to an April 2011 report by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries titled “Workplace Bullying and Disruptive Behavior: What Everyone Needs to Know.”

“The target often doesn’t even realize when they are being bullied because the behavior is covert, through trivial circumstances and isolating actions that occur behind closed doors … While harassment is illegal, bullying in the workplace is not,” the report states.

In fact, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute, bullying is four times more prevalent at work than harassment.

“We define it as abusive conduct — health-harming, abusive conduct that takes the form of repeated mistreatment [or] verbal abuse or threats, intimidation or humiliation,” Namie said.

Aside from the negative impact workplace bullying has on people — high stress, absence, reduced self-esteem, depression, sleep problems — bullying can cause turnover in an organization as well as a loss of productivity. High costs associated with investigations of potential ill treatment or, in some cases, legal action are also common.

The Workplace Bullying Institute breaks workplace bullying into different categories.

• The “screaming meanies.” These office bullies may be yelling or cursing at their target in public. Namie dubbed this the “Bobby Knight” approach in reference to the famously irate and emotional former head coach of Indiana University’s men’s basketball team.

• The constant critic. This individual tries behind closed doors to distort the appraisal or evaluation of a particular employee, claiming that the target is incompetent. “That starts to shatter the person’s sense of integrity and they’ll fall apart in a matter of a few months,” Namie said.

• The “control freak.” Oftentimes bullies deem themselves the “gatekeeper” to all resources; they in turn bully by refusing to allow access to these resources to certain employees, potentially hindering those employees’ work performance as a result.

This begs the question: Why hasn’t more attention been placed on the issue? For one, bullying isn’t technically illegal, and in many of the cases may be difficult to detect — the culprit will almost always deny any accusation. But another reason may be political: Those in management positions often end up taking on the role of the bully, so employees may be afraid to report instances they deem as bullying so as not to lose favor with their superiors.

This is something many employees may not want to do, given the frail economic environment. With the job market in disarray, employees may be staying in a poor job situation longer, leaving them subject to more abuse and harm on behalf of a workplace bully. Namie said in the past, it was more common for abused employees to quit and take their talents elsewhere.

Additionally, equally due to the scarcity of jobs, workers may be growing meaner at work, trying to blow down anyone in their path if it means greater job security and standing. “An otherwise very kind and gentle person [could become] a wholly terror at work if they believe that’s what it’s going to take to stay employed and get ahead,” he said.

Hampering Job Growth?

Others claim that a more acute form of workplace bullying takes place after an employee leaves. This may occur when a prospective employer conducts reference checks, and the former employer offers negative feedback.

Most companies have a policy where only titles and dates of employment of a former employee can be verified upon a reference check. The idea is that any other feedback — whether it is positive or negative — could create potential legal trouble for the company.

Still, many fail to abide by this, harming unemployed individuals’ chances of getting back into the workforce, said Jeff Shane, vice president of Allison & Taylor, a reference checking company.

Shane’s firm gets hired by clients, many of whom are unemployed, to conduct reference checks to make sure former supervisors are not giving negative feedback to potential employers. Those who do offer negative feedback — and whose corporate policy is strictly against the practice — are documented and might receive a “cease and desist” letter, threatening further legal action. Even if such unfavorable information is factual, if the company has a strict policy on the matter, legal action can be taken, Shane said.

“We have found, unfortunately, that about half of the thousands of checks we conduct do indeed come back with some form of negative information,” he said.

Being Proactive Pays Off

Preventing traditional workplace bullying, however, is more complex. According to the Washington State Department report, employees can regain control of the situation by first recognizing or acknowledging that the bullying is taking place. The report then recommends keeping detailed documentation on specific occurrences.

As for talent managers, encouraging office open-door policies and starting awareness campaigns on the subject is a starting point. Crafting detailed and compliant anti-bullying policies that differ from a firm’s anti-harassment policy is also one way to start to mitigate the problem, the report said.

Namie, through the Healthy Workforce Campaign, has been championing that a bill get passed to make bullying in the workforce unlawful. The bill, titled the “Healthy Workplace Bill,” has been introduced in 21 states since 2003. Some states have taken more kindly to the bill than others, but it has yet to pass. “We’re getting closer,” Namie said.

Despite efforts to get legal action taken on workplace bullying, prevention must go further than policy or law. The root of the problem is cultural. Organizations need to take a hard look and evaluate if the work environment they’ve laid out is enabling the behavior.

“Until the executive team is willing to say, ‘We don’t need to be abusive to be successful,’ [anti-bullying programs] will go nowhere,” Namie said.

Frank Kalman is an associate editor of Talent Management magazine. He can be reached at fkalman@talentmgt.com.

It reminds us all that bullies erode profits and prevent balanced budgets because of their meddling. Their misconduct leads to avoidable:
- turnover of the wrong people (the skilled and threatening (to the bullies) ones),
- absenteeism for mental health days,
- presenteeism by the resentful,
- increased healthcare utilization,
- skyrocketing workers comp and disability insurance claims, and
- litigation expenses (defense and settlement costs).

Available as a button or magnet.

Illegitimi non carborundum, Latin for Don’t Let the Turkeys Get You Down (well, close enough)

The harming effects of workplace bullying can go further than mere embarrassment. A target may become psychologically injured after long-term abuse.

According to the Workplace Bullying Institute, "workplace bullying is repeated, health-harming mistreatment that takes one or more of the following forms: verbal abuse; offensive conduct/behaviors (including nonverbal) which are threatening, humiliating, or intimidating; and work interference (sabotage) which prevents work from getting done."

Workplace bullying has devastating effects on the targeted individual. Not only does one feel that their job is in jeopardy, they may also start to feel physically ill and emotionally harmed.

Bullying poses great liabilities to employers, including:

• Occupational health and safety violations;
• Actions for negligence or intentional infliction of mental suffering; or
• Defamatory actions.

Another concern that arises from workplace bullying is stress-related illness. These illnesses can range over many categories. It is not uncommon for people under extreme stress to develop symptoms of heart disease (i.e. high blood pressure), gastrointestinal disorders (i.e. irritable bowel syndrome, ulcers) and many other ailments. The stress that results from bullying can lead to long-term illnesses; some ailments by affect an individual for life.

Bullying and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

As a result of the negative feelings associated with workplace bullying, targets are at a very high risk of developing mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety disorder. Their way of living is attacked for no apparent reason and often, the attacker is intent on harming the target for no apparent reason. Targets may endure abuse day in and day out for months or even years. This abuse harms their overall health. While depression and anxiety can be debilitating, targets may experience symptoms that are different. Yet finding a fitting diagnosis causes a bit of a controversy among some professionals.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) describes symptoms that result when a person is involved in a short-term or single traumatic event. Examples include accidents, natural disasters, assault, attempted murder and rape because these are considered to be of short duration. However, the trauma related to workplace bullying is not an isolated, short-term event.

Long term or chronic events that span a period of months or years tend to develop symptoms that vary from PTSD. There is usually more intense psychological harm when one experiences repeated trauma. There may be complete changes to one's concept of who they are and in their ability to cope with stressful situations.

During long-term traumas, people are held in physical and/or emotional captivity. They are under the influence of their abuser and unable to get out of the situation they are in. Examples include:

• Prisoner of War camps
• Long-term domestic violence
• Repeated, severe physical abuse
• Childhood sexual abuse

Some psychologists believe that a different term, Complex PTSD (C-PTSD), should be used to identify trauma that is repeated or long-term. Bullying targets may show symptoms that are similar to PTSD and/or C-PTSD. For this reason, researchers of workplace bullying believe that bullying should be considered an example of captivity.

C-PTSD is not a recognized diagnosis in the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. It should be noted, however, that the main difference between the two types of PTSD is the cause of the disorder in the patient. Symptoms of the two types are much the same. For this reason, therapists may diagnose bullying targets with PTSD, allowing patients receive treatment.

The Symptoms of Complex PTSD

Above all, to be considered for a diagnosis of C-PTSD, the target must experience an extended period under the control of another person. After this has been established, other symptoms must be taken into account.

According to Julia M. Whealin, Ph.D. and Laurie Slone, Ph.D., in the May 22, 2007 version of the US Department of Veterans Affairs site, Complex PTSD, there are symptoms that would occur if someone has been chronically victimized, including:

• Persistent sadness, explosive anger; inhibited anger; suicidal thoughts;
• Forgetting traumatic events or reliving them. Feeling detached from one's mind or body;
• Feelings of helplessness, shame, guilt and stigma. One may feel that they are different than other people;
• Attributing total power to the abuser. Preoccupation with the perpetrator, possibly becoming obsessed with revenge;
• Social isolation, distrust in others or repeatedly searching for a rescuer; and
• A loss of faith or a sense of hopelessness and despair.

Other difficulties that may be experienced by people with C-PTSD include:

• Avoiding topics related to the trauma due to feelings that are too overwhelming;
• Abusing alcohol/other substances to avoid and/or numb feelings/thoughts associated with trauma;
• Self-mutilating and/or other types of self-injurious behaviors.

Workplace bullying is a serious issue due to the harmful health issues it causes. People have committed suicide and/or harmed others while in the throes of PTSD episodes. One should consult their doctor and/or a mental health professional if experiencing symptoms, especially feelings that cause one to be a danger to self or others.

Originally posted at Suite101

Every workplace has them, but it’s hard to deal with bullies at work because more often than not, they are in positions of power.

It may be the boss, or someone who has been there for a long time and who are just part of the system.

My mate, consultant Rowan Manahan says bullying has become worse in a tough economy because everyone is under more pressure.

What makes it even more complicated is that the issue of bullying is a murky area. What might be considered normal behaviour for some is considered bullying by others.

If you are any doubt over what constitutes bullying behaviour, the CareerBuilder site identifies some common examples: your comments are dismissed or not acknowledged, you are falsely accused of mistakes you didn’t make, you are forced to do work that isn’t your job, there are double standards for you and other workers, you are given looks that should be in a scabbard, people gossip about you, your boss runs you down in front of other workers, belittling comments are made about you at meetings and people steal credit for your work.

According to a Career Builder survey, women reported a higher incidence of being treated unfairly at the office – 34 per cent of women said they had felt bullied in the workplace compared to 22 percent of men. And age also plays a part with 29 percent of workers aged 55 or older and 29 percent of workers aged 24 or younger, reporting they had been bullied on the job.

For most, telling people in HR is no solution. They are unlikely to help because the HR unit is usually pretty political and don’t want to rock the boat. Besides, HR tends not to be that high up the chain of command in many organisations.

According to the Workplace Bullying Institute, HR hardly ever fixes the problem, and only manages it correctly about 3 per cent of the time. Even if that’s overstating it, I haven’t heard of any cases where HR actually resolved the problem.

Laurie Tarkan at BNet recommends you take things into your own hands, first by identifying what you’re experiencing and giving it a name. Emotional bullying, harassment, abuse – it’s all important because that tells you it’s not your fault. She also recommends getting some help. It could include everything from talking to a counsellor to seeking advice from a doctor to make sure you are not suffering symptoms of stress like hypertension.

Research your legal options. That includes reading the company’s internal policies, particularly on areas like harassment, just to see if there are any violations you can report. She recommends documenting what economic impact the bully has had on the company, citing what it has cost the company in terms of lost productivity and absenteeism. If you report the bully, report the person to the highest level in the company, which immediately eliminates HR.

Start a job search and be prepared to leave if management sides with the bully.

Psychologist Michelle Callahan has a number of suggestions that include: not getting emotional about the situation, building a support network, seeking some help, and most importantly, not expecting you’ll be able to change the bully. In most cases they simply won’t accept that they have a problem.

The Human Resources Degree blog has several good ideas. One includes confronting the bully based on the assumption that most bullies deep down are cowards and can’t handle confrontation. The other thing it suggests is to ignore them because when they see they’re not getting under your skin, they won’t derive as much pleasure from the bullying.

Cy Wakeman in Fast Company has a completely left of field approach. He recommends getting inside the bully’s head instead of wasting time and energy resisting them. This involves making some connection but not too much – just enough to neutralise them.

“To remain in a peaceful place and not be rattled by another co-worker, regardless of their assumed motive, is to assure them that you care about them, but you are unable to participate in the conversation or grant their request,’’ Wakeman says.

“Repeat yourself often and diffuse the manipulative co-worker. So stop wasting time hovering in the corner and stand up for yourself. You’ll feel better, and the office bully may turn into a co-worker you’ll want on your team.”

via Management Line.

By Anne Fisher, contributor, July 8, 2011: 10:30 AM ET

FORTUNE — Dear Annie: A friend of mine sent me your column about five ways to cope with an autocratic boss, but I’m facing a problem with my immediate supervisor that is actually quite a bit worse. Since I started this job about two months ago (it’s my first “real” job out of college), my boss has become a nightmare. He constantly snipes at everything I do, makes sarcastic remarks, and about once a week has a totally out-of-control screaming fit where he calls me, and a couple of my coworkers, names I don’t even want to repeat.

Another thing I’ve discovered: After cutting our time short to complete assignments, which he always does at the last minute so there’s no way to make up the lost time, he complains to higher-ups — who all seem to think he walks on water — about how “lazy” we are. I really want to succeed at this company, but I’m not sure how long I can stand it. Should I talk to the person above him, who seems like a reasonable human being? If not, what can I do? — Ulcer in the Making

Dear U.M.: Your boss sounds like a classic workplace bully, defined as someone who repeatedly inflicts on others “verbal abuse, threatening conduct, intimidation or humiliation” as well as “sabotage that prevents work from getting done” (those suddenly altered deadlines).

That definition comes from the Workplace Bullying Institute, a nonprofit research and training organization. Alas, it’s not an unusual problem: About 50% of the U.S. workforce reports either having been bullied by someone at work or having witnessed someone else being mistreated, according to a survey of 4,210 American adults that WBI conducted last year.

Another poll last month, by job site CareerBuilders, found that 27% of U.S. employees have experienced some form of bullying at work. Most “never confronted or reported” the bully, the study says.

The WBI research shows that about three-quarters (72%) of bullies are bosses, and one reason they get away with it is that, in most states, abusing employees is not illegal unless the mistreatment is demonstrably based on age, sex, race, or religion, so it flies under the radar of corporate human resources and legal departments. That is slowly changing. So far, 21 states have passed anti-workplace-bullying laws, and 11 more are considering following suit.

Even if you live in a state where bullying is illegal now, suing your employer is probably not your best move. Neither is complaining about your boss to the person above him. For one thing, your boss fits a profile that WBI chief Gary Namie recognizes all too well: The supervisor who is adept at kissing up and kicking down, as the saying goes, and is careful to make a great impression on higher-ups.

“Bullies sneak into companies disguised as high performers and desirably ambitious go-getters,” Namie says. In other words, you’re likely to be perceived as far more dispensable than they are. That’s probably why, a 2007 WBI survey shows, 53% of employers did nothing when employees reported a bullying boss. In 24% of cases, it was even worse: The person who complained got fired.

So what can you do? First, since you want to succeed at this company, start looking around to see if opportunities exist, or may soon exist, that would put you out of this person’s reach. Get to know as many people as you can in other areas of the company where you might want to work, and keep an eye out for job openings. Just knowing that you won’t be working for this boss forever can make it a little easier to put up with him.

Namie, who is co-author of useful book called The Bully at Work: What You Can Do to Stop the Hurt and Reclaim Your Dignity on the Job, offers three other suggestions for protecting your psyche — and your stomach — from your bullying boss:

1. Practice tuning out the tantrums. One way to keep your cool when your boss starts screaming is to practice repeating a mantra in your head like, “Ignore the anger. It’s not yours.” Another approach is to “simply think about the one aspect of the bully’s physical appearance you find most awkward,” Namie says. Focusing on the boss’s goofy haircut or oversized ears “can help you to stay calm” because “you’re not taking him too seriously.”

2. Get a reality check. Bullies have a knack for knowing exactly “how to make you feel incompetent or unworthy,” Namie notes. “When confronted by a constant critic who picks apart both your work and your worthiness, it’s hard not to believe he’s right.”

To counteract that, he says, you need a good friend or respected ally at work “who could help you determine whether any of the criticism is useful to your work. Which parts are valid, and which are incorrect, misinformed, malicious, or just plain whiny?”

3. Enlist supporters. Since you mention that a few of your coworkers have also been on the receiving end of your boss’s screaming fits, try sounding them out about the problem, Namie suggests. “Are they willing to brainstorm with you about possible ways to improve the situation, without anyone having to take on the boss alone?”

Even as a group of like-minded fellow sufferers, Namie warns, you probably can’t transform a bully’s behavior. After all, it’s clearly been working pretty well for him so far. But at the very least, you can provide each other with enough moral support to last until you no longer work for this bozo.

Good luck.

Link to original article

By Janice Crompton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Thursday, April 21, 2011

When Tom Shannon accepted a job 15 years ago, he expected to raise his family and retire after a long, satisfying career.

But instead, the 51-year-old information technology specialist from Butler County found himself confronted with what he describes as an alcoholic, abusive supervisor who, he said, eventually drove him from his job — and nearly out of his mind.

“There were days when I didn’t think I could make it through the day. It was that bad,” said Mr. Shannon, who left his job two years ago after complaints about his supervisor went nowhere.

After years of suffering through drunken outbursts and insults, the stress also took its toll on Mr. Shannon’s health, eventually causing him to develop high blood pressure and anxiety.

“If I would have stayed there, I’d be dead by now,” said Mr. Shannon, now happily employed by the federal government.

Mr. Shannon’s case isn’t unique, and he’s one of a growing number of people who are willing to testify before state lawmakers about workplace bullying and its consequences.

They are being organized by Washington, Pa., native Gary Namie, who heads the Workplace Bullying Institute, a nonprofit group devoted to resolving the issue.

A 2010 poll commissioned by the WBI and conducted by Zogby International showed that 35 percent of Americans reported being bullied at work; 9 percent said they were currently being bullied and 26 percent said they had experienced workplace bullying in the past.

Once a worker becomes a target of a workplace bully, research shows that person has a six in 10 chance of losing his or her job, Mr. Namie said.
“Forty percent quit and 24 percent get fired,” said Mr. Namie. He co-founded the research and education organization that would eventually become the WBI 14 years ago with his wife, Ruth Namie, after she experienced workplace bullying firsthand.

A 1970 graduate of Washington High School and 1974 graduate of Washington & Jefferson College, Mr. Namie met his wife, an Upland, Calif., native, when he moved to California to attend graduate school.

Married in 1983, the couple stayed in California for many years working in the psychology field: Ms. Namie worked as a therapist for chemically dependent people, and her husband was a business consultant.

A job transfer to a new mental health clinic in 1995 put Ms. Namie face to face with the issue that still stirs her passion today.

Though one of her new colleagues welcomed her to the job with a hug — “beware of the hug,” Ms. Namie warns — the claws soon came out, and the female colleague began a campaign of bullying against Ms. Namie that she said went on for several years.

It included verbal insults, sarcastic remarks, put-downs during staff meetings and “just constant digs,” criticizing everything from her clothing to her personality, Ms. Namie remembered.

“She had me running from place to place to avoid her,” said Ms. Namie, who was also ostracized by co-workers who didn’t want to get involved in the issue.

Ms. Namie said she received glowing evaluations, but was eventually placed on administrative leave for “insubordination,” then lost her job.

Employers — whether private companies, universities or small businesses — have been reluctant to take action against bullies, citing litigation concerns and workplace policies that don’t address such abuse. Most often, employees are expected to sort out personality conflicts among themselves, and it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between ordinary disputes and bullying.

It’s a pattern of repeated mistreatment, insults, verbal abuse and even sometimes sabotage and threats, that defines workplace bullying today, Mr. Namie said.

The push for legislation to curb it has gained traction in recent years, with 20 states introducing measures to outlaw bullying, though no laws have yet been passed.

Most states have laws on the books addressing physical, emotional and cyber bullying, but they pertain mostly to education law, governing primary and high school students.

In New Jersey, legislators and prosecutors recently found themselves grappling with how to charge two Rutgers University students who were accused of surreptitiously filming an intimate encounter between fellow student Tyler Clementi and another man.

Mr. Clementi, 18, committed suicide after the students posted the video on the Internet.

His roommate, Dharun Ravi, was indicted Wednesday on a hate crime charge. If convicted of the most serious bias charge on the 15-count indictment, Mr. Ravi could face five to 10 years in prison.

Other countries have begun crafting laws aimed at criminalizing workplace bullying. In Australia, new legislation would make it a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The new legislation was prompted in part by the 2006 suicide of a 19-year-old waitress who was tormented by her co-workers.

At issue is how exactly to define workplace bullying, and recognizing the ways it differs from harassment or civil rights infringements, which are already outlawed in the U.S. if they involve discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion or national origin.

That’s why the Namies developed the Healthy Workplace Bill, a model designed to steer legislation by addressing the concerns of employers as well as employees with high standards of proof and independent medical evaluations.

They recruit volunteers, such as Mr. Shannon and others who have been targeted by bullies, to give testimony in front of legislative committees.
“I think that once one state passes legislation … it will be a domino effect,” said lawyer Jason Habinsky, who co-authored a Jan. 21 article about the legal issues surrounding workplace abuse in the New York Law Journal.

The Namies, who eventually relocated to Bellingham, Wash., have written several books about bullying. Their latest, “The Bully Free Workplace,” will be released May 23.

The couple have been featured in more than 900 print and broadcast media outlets and Mr. Namie has served as an expert witness in lawsuits, including during a 2005 jury trial in Indiana in which the plaintiff won a $325,000 verdict for emotional distress against his former employer.
Mr. Namie said he’s proud to stand up for people targeted by bullies, but it isn’t always an easy job.

“It’s tough to be mired in the misery of others,” he said. “Nobody calls us with good news. It’s like running a domestic violence hotline, except it’s in the workplace.”

Janice Crompton: jcrompton@post-gazette.com or 724-223-0156.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11111/1140772-55-0.stm?cmpid=localstate.xml#ixzz1KBUGl0BC

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.

Personal shame is made possible by a deep-seated lack of deservedness, as in “I don’t deserve the respect or love of others.” Individuals raised in abusive family environments readily accept the reality that love-depriving parents create. The destructive, hateful messages include: “You are not loveable and no one can love you, ever.” These are the origins of shame. In adulthood, when another person humiliates you, it reminds you of that earlier wound. The pain is re-experienced.

Now in adulthood, repeat same lie-filled script uttered by an abusive spouse or partner and you see how domestic violence induces shame — “you are worthless and unlovable.”

The intimidating, humiliating boss or co-worker says similar things — “you have no brain, why waste money training you when you will forget in a week anyway …”  See the pattern? The message is the same. You do not deserve good treatment because you are a bad, faulty, broken, worthless person.

As an adult who has had many positive experiences in the intervening years since childhood, you could know objectively how valuable you are to your employer and co-workers. You have been the go-to expert for years, the most technically skilled. If you were a vain narcissist like your bully, you would never let in any message from anyone telling you anything that did not reinforce that positive self-image as a valued, trusted, competent individual.

But if you are a target, you may not actually believe the lies spewed by your bully, but your humility compels you to allow for the possibility that there is a “kernel of truth” in the pack of lies. After all, you reason, everyone can improve and maybe this a**hole can actually teach me something to improve myself.

This door-opening, boundary-violating step is the top source of shame ( 35%) for survey respondents — that they might have deserved the criticism.

FACT: The bully probably completed some reconnaissance on you early in the relationship so some emotional buttons could be used later. The problem was made more likely by your willingness to disclose your personal history while the bully gave nothing personal away. The criticisms leveled against you are likely PERSONAL attacks and have little to nothing (depending on your bully’s ability to act shamelessly) to do with work itself.

FACT:  Bullying, just like all illegal forms of harassment, come uninvited. Can you imagine anyone rising on a workday and voluntarily declaring that “today is a good day to be humiliated!!! I’ll be sure to ask for it!!!”? Ridiculous, isn’t it? No one wants or deserves the abuse that is workplace bullying.

The second most frequent source of shame was not being able to confront or counter the bully (28% of survey takers). If you could have, you would have confronted. You were not able for a couple of reasons. First, the bully uses surprise to her or his advantage. It’s the unpredictability and bushwhacking nature of bullying that poses the trauma threat. Bullies not only decide who to target but when and how to attack. Despite their lying rationalization that the target “made” them do what they did, no rational target actually says “bring it on.”  Second, you could not defend yourself because you are not blessed/cursed with a snappy comeback, insulting style of your own. You are quieter, more reflective, more reticent to say the first thing that comes to mind (which serves you well in most circumstances except when under attack). Your inner a**hole stays buried when faced with aggression. Bullyproof people let their inner a**hole fly and the bully backs down, recognizing one of their own kind.

The response that was claimed by 22% of respondents — embarrassment from letting the bullying happen — is also stigmatizing. But it is more likely guilt than shame. Guilt derives from doing bad behaviors. Shame is being a bad person. Bullied targets often ruminate guiltily over being controlled as if they sought it. It is important to re-characterize “letting it happen” to “working with a hyperaggressive person who ignores my professional boundaries.” It is not the responsibility of the invaded person to stop the invader, especially a more powerful one. Invaders must be prevented by their host institutions (employers).  Since the majority (72%) of bullying is done by someone who outranks you, control is in their hands. You have little to say. Couple their title power with surprise and it is remarkable that you can hold on to the amount of personal dignity you have to date. The bully had unilateral decision-making power. Rarely can you stop it.

In a 2010 Today Show appearance, Nicole Williams, was asked to comment on a bullying story (provided by WBI). In studio, she stated naively that bullied targets have the “responsibility” to stop their bullies. She has never been bullied or has no empathy for what it is like to work under someone’s thumb on a daily basis. Watch the clip and see for yourself how wrong she was and is.

With respect to confronting or being targeted, you are not the reason that you were bullied. The motivation comes completely from the bully’s twisted, insecure, threatened mind.

The saddest result from the survey was that only 13% of bullied targets said that they had NO SHAME because they neither invited nor deserved the abuse. It seems that self-effacing, self-defeating explanations are held by the vast majority of bullied targets.

What cannot be ascertained by this simple survey is whether bullied targets had the shame and guilt prior to their experiences with bullying or changed from the prolonged exposure to it. That is, we know emotional and stress-related injuries from bullying change individuals. It is also likely that bullying lowers one’s resistance to shame (and personal self-elevation and self-validation abilities), resulting in shame.

The WBI commitment to public education about workplace bullying necessarily must focus on target perceptions about themselves in order to optimize their mental health for the battles ahead. Neither shame nor guilt helps one cope with bullying.

This event marks the international movement’s 14 years of existence. The group providing direction for the movement is the International Association of Workplace Bullying and Harassment (IAWBH). For the worldwide phenomenon that workplace bullying is, the number of individuals intimately involved in studying, preventing and correcting it is a relatively small. But the movement grows. An even larger and more diverse group is expected in 2012 in Copenhagen when the 8th conference convenes.

Here are my brief observations about conference themes and outcomes.

The Science Mounts

141 papers summarizing countless studies and solutions from social and management science academics added to the growing body of literature in the field. There are three primary customer groups that need the information.

First, bullied individuals will benefit. The users of this website’s Research Library know that the newest information can often be personally useful to alleviate the pain. Family members and doubters also can read the studies for themselves to gain validation about the seriousness of bullying’s impact on the target and those who love him or her. We will be adding to the online Library in coming months thanks to the conference.

Second, for the few who mount a lawsuit, scientific findings can be used by your attorney and expert witnesses to bolster your case, countering the employer defense that you lie about your experiences.

Third, lawmakers at the state and federal level need convincing that bullying is a serious public health threat. Out of this conference comes even more evidence that worker health and safety are compromised by bullying. And co-worker witnesses don’t do so well either. Science should trump political nitpicking or scaremongering. But I realize we are in America.

Brit Unions Still Lead

UNISON, the largest UK public employees’ union, conducted a study of bullying within its membership a decade ago and repeated the survey recently. A paper by the union and Prof. Charlotte Rayner found that bullying rates had doubled in that decade. UNISON plans to use the findings to work within the ranks and with partnering employers to curb bullying. I like the union commitment, even though 20% of the bullying is member-on-member. A keynote address by  Rachael Maskell from UNITE, a UK union affiliated with USW in the U.S., was inspiring. Again, there was an unequivocal commitment to eliminating bullying by organizing workers around the topic (an activity AFGE officer emeritus Carol Fehner suggests in our Union section), compelling employers to ensure their duty of care to protect worker health and safety, and being involved in all aspects of bullying in the workplace.  In 2012, I hope there are U.S. union success stories to present.

Euro Legislation Sets the Standard

Of particular relevance to the WBI Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB) Legislative Campaign were several sessions reviewing laws in Quebec, France, Brazil, and Italy. Prof. David Yamada, author of the U.S. HWB, put our bill into the context of worldwide progress. Remarkably, most applicable laws in other nations are fraught with ambiguity and imprecision. What has changes is the courts’ (judges’) interpretations of them. In France, lower courts have slowly raised the standard for plaintiffs as originally written in the laws. So, the highest court has admonished lower courts and restored employee rights. For this reason and many others, the U.S. still lags far behind by not having any comparable laws. The reports led me to redouble our efforts to enact the HWB here in the U.S.

Americans on Board

David Yamada delivered an informative keynote (download it here) on international laws regarding workplace bullying. I’m proud to have literally joined the Board at the Cardiff conference. My keynote address was completely non-scientific. It was about “Re-Framing the Message” for the necessary America revolution ahead. You can download it here. Make no mistake, we Americans are late-comers to the IAWBH party that began humbly in 1998 in Staffordshire, England.

New Grad Students

The leaders of this movement, like yours truly, are getting long in the tooth. A transfusion is coming thanks to a new generation of graduate students – both young and older people – pursuing doctoral degrees in the field. And no single lab produces more doctorates than the Bergen (Norway) Bullying Research Group, led by Prof. Stale Einarsen. Of the 33 students who attended the pre-conference program for doctoral students,  four were Americans!  They are “in the pipeline” and will make their mark as young academics in U.S. universities, reversing years of biases faced by the pioneering students of years past.  WBI will assist these aspiring American scholars in any way it can. Contact us. Remember, for me to be a “recovering academic,” I had to have been one in the past. I know what you are going through. I can support you.

HR Must Change

The IAWBH conference is not an HR conference. But HR is increasingly asked to join us at the table. Frankly, the empirical findings do not currently paint a positive portrait of HR’s ability to stop bullying. The HR problem may be less a matter of willingness than a lack of internal political clout to effect requisite changes. CEOs would have to trust HR more to allow them to stop bullying. Nevertheless, in the face of lots of criticism of the HR function, a few brave individuals did present research from an HR perspective. Those people, like Gabriele Murry (from Germany) deserve our support because they are truly appalled that bullying is done with impunity. We welcome HR professionals who “get it” and do not blame targets for their fate.

Dr. Gary Namie, WBI, June 7

On Feb. 3, 2008,  Jodie Zebell took her own life … A Spanish teacher testified she was “iced out and isolated” for four years by older colleagues in her school district. Once a marathon runner, she now suffers from clinical depression, chest pain, panic attacks and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Dr. Deborah Lemke told lawmakers of an unnamed Wisconsin hospital where the nursing supervisor verbally bullied nurses on his staff. When she intervened on behalf of the nurses, she herself became a target.

Amid emotional testimony, bill targets workplace bullying

In 2008, 31-year-old Jodie Zebell appeared to have a full life. The UW-Madison graduate was married with two young children and a part-time job as a mammographer at a La Crosse clinic, where she was praised as a model employee.

Jodie Zebell, 31, took her own life in 2008 after months of workplace bullying, her aunt told an Assembly committee Wednesday. Zebell's family is backing a bill that would outlaw workplace harassment in Wisconsin. Photo courtesy of the Jodie Zebell family

But soon afterward, Zebell became the target of co-workers who unfairly blamed her for problems at work. After she was promoted, the bullying intensified, her aunt Joie Bostwick recalled during a legislative hearing Wednesday attended by members of her niece’s family, including Zebell’s mother, Jean Jones of Spring Hill, Fla.

After her niece had a run-in with her supervisor, Bostwick said, the boss joined in the harassment, filling Zebell’s personnel file with baseless complaints about her performance and loudly criticizing her in front of others.

“This went on for a series of months,” said Bostwick, a Blue Mounds native who now lives in Naples, Fla. “It just got worse and worse.”

On Feb. 3, 2008, the day before she was to receive a poor job review, Jodie Zebell took her own life. A Madison attorney told the family it had no legal recourse since she wasn’t protected from workplace discrimination as would be an older worker or a racial, ethnic or religious minority.

“We were astounded to find there was nothing we could do. There were no laws unless you were part of a protected class,” Bostwick said.

The tragedy sparked Zebell’s family to join the national movement seeking to ban bullying from workplaces and give victims — who prefer to call themselves “targets” — tools to stop the harassment or sue abusive employers and bullies in court.

Abusive conduct

On Wednesday, the Assembly Labor Committee heard 90 minutes of often emotional testimony on a bill sponsored by state Rep. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, that would require employers to implement and enforce anti-bullying policies — or face their abused employees in court.

Seventeen states are considering such legislation, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute of Bellingham, Wash., whose director, Gary Namie, also testified at the hearing.

Under the proposal, workers who believe they have been harmed by “abusive conduct” could sue to force the employer to stop the bullying, to seek reinstatement or to get compensation for lost wages, medical costs, attorneys’ fees, emotional distress and punitive damages.

The bill defines abusive conduct as “repeated infliction of verbal abuse, verbal or physical conduct that is threatening, intimidating or humiliating, sabotage or undermining of an employee’s work performance or exploitation of an employee’s known psychological or physical vulnerability.”

Vaguely worded bill

Representatives of business groups told the committee the bill is too vaguely worded and would invite frivolous lawsuits by disgruntled and incompetent workers.

“AB 894 paints a target on the back of small employers … (who) can’t afford to fight claims in circuit courts,” said Pete Hanson, director of government relations for the Wisconsin Restaurant Association.

Andrew Cook of the Wisconsin Civil Justice Council, a consortium of large business groups, agreed. Cook said if Wisconsin becomes the first state to pass such a bill, it would harm the state’s ability to attract business.

Emotional stories

But at the hearing, such concerns were largely overshadowed by these stories:

· A Spanish teacher testified she was “iced out and isolated” for four years by older colleagues in her school district. Once a marathon runner, Susan Stiede now suffers from clinical depression, chest pain, panic attacks and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. She quit teaching in 2009.

· A nervous state employee told of being harassed by a unnamed female boss in a state agency that she declined to name. Intimidated by her knowledge of the agency, the new supervisor circulated untrue rumors about her, and banished her to an office with no phone and separated her from her co-workers. When she took a six-month stress leave, the supervisor started bullying other members of the staff, she said.

· Dr. Deborah Lemke told lawmakers of an unnamed Wisconsin hospital where the nursing supervisor verbally bullied nurses on his staff. When she intervened on behalf of the nurses, Lemke said, holding back tears, she herself became a target.

Corliss Olson, associate professor at the UW-Extension’s School for Workers, said the bill is “desperately” needed.
Olson said most targets of bullying are “normal, competent people” who can be driven to disability or even death.

“This is a viciousness in the workplace that we need to stop,” Olson said. “We can and we must change our workplaces so they are civil.”

Read the original article. Track progress of the Wisconsin bill AB 894 at the 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.

Researchers Nathanael Fast of the University of Southern California and Serena Chen of the University of California, Berkeley, found in a series of studies that it is actually the combination of power and incompetence that can result in bad boss behavior. The paper will be published in the November issue of the journal Psychological Science.

 [FYI, the paper is also described in our article and can be requested from the WBI Research list - A7. ]

“It’s not just power that corrupts people and it’s not just incompetence either,” said Fast, the lead author of the study. “It’s the pairing of the two that leads to aggression.”

Over a third of working Americans are estimated to have been bullied—that is, belittled, threatened, humiliated or sabotaged—according to a separate survey of 7,740 workers. And 72 percent of the perpetrators are bosses. The Workplace Bullying Institute, an advocacy group based in Bellingham, Wash., sponsored the national survey.

“

Abusive supervision is a major problem in U.S. companies.This is bad because it leads to high turnover and poorer performance,” Fast said. “We wanted to figure out what the mechanisms were that caused the power-holders to abuse their underlings.”

To do so, the researchers conducted four studies with 410 participants.

In one experiment, half of the participants were conditioned to feel powerful by recalling experiences of power over others. The other participants remained neutral as they were made to remember mundane events. Some members from each group were then conditioned to feel competent by recalling an achievement while the rest were conditioned to feel incompetent by recounting a failure.

Afterwards, the participants’ propensity for bullying was measured using a noise-blast horn, a tool used by psychologists to gauge aggression. The participants were instructed to select the decibel levels of the horn blasts to be used when strangers made mistakes. The volume of the noise blasts revealed how aggressive the participants were.

“The people in the high-power condition who also felt incompetent were the ones who exposed these strangers to high-noise blasts,” Fast said. “None of the other groups did.”

Ruth McKay, an organizational behavior specialist at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, said the study has timely implications on workplace conduct.

“I find the results very interesting especially in today’s environment where baby boomers are exiting the workplace and there may be employees that are promoted too quickly without training to fill the gaps,” she said. “They may use aggression as a response if challenged.”

Adam Galinsky, a management and organization professor at the Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University, expressed concern about thrusting unprepared people into leadership positions as well.

“Organizations need to train people for leadership,” he said. “They need to not only give skills but to also provide a sense of ‘I know what I am doing.’”

SIOUX CITY — The Sioux City Community School District wants to practice what it teaches by developing an anti-bullying program for adults.
The district already has a program in place for students, but this week, about 20 district employees, including teachers, janitors, administrators and counselors, gathered at the Northwest Area Education Agency to brainstorm and create a bullying-prevention program for themselves and their co-workers.

The district is the first in the nation to launch an anti-bullying program with advocates trained to hear complaints from employees, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute in Bellingham, Wash., which is partnering with the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention in North Sioux City to provide training.

A trained advocate can resolve disputes in an effort to resolve them without a reprimand or forward them to district officials for further action.

Sioux City Education Association president Bruce Lear said workplace bullying is a problem in every work environment and trying to stop it before it happens is the best approach.

“This provides a vehicle to address something that’s long been unaddressed,” Lear said. “We’re unique in the idea that we’re willing to try to do something before it happens.”

Cindy Waitt of the Waitt Institute said open discussion about workplace bullying is a recent phenomenon.

“It’s so new and cutting edge,” Waitt said. “Fifty years ago there wasn’t a conversation about family violence. … This is all a part of people becoming open to all forms of bullying in life. This one could take a generation to reach a saturation point.”

Debi VanMeter, a safety technician for the district, said people have confided in her about uncomfortable situations at work and that compelled her to get involved with the program and become an advocate.

“I think it will further promote a healthy work environment for the employees of the district, and I also think it will trickle down to the children in the district,” VanMeter said. “Overall, it enhances a healthier atmosphere.”

Steve Crary, human resources director for the district, said the school board passed a workplace bullying policy in January and the workshop is the next step.

“This creates a synergy within our district where employees can stand up if they see this occurring and say,’ Knock it off, stop,’” he said.

But there’s a whole range of actions that can be taken, including termination, if bullying occurs, Crary said.

“The reality is, if we can get our employees to buy in and be part of the process it will have a much larger impact than just human resources,” he said.

Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute, said he hopes other districts across the country will follow in Sioux City’s footsteps.

“Our desire is to see this become a national movement that school districts will want to embrace,” Namie said. “As schools cut back and lay off, I think it’s wonderful to have employee protection for surviving employees.”

Namie said people shouldn’t shy away from reporting bullying just because they’re grateful to still have a job and that employers should be obligated to offer a safe, healthy workplace free of humiliation and intimidation.

Alison Benson, spokeswoman for the district, said she hopes the program will begin some time this year.

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

Features WBI colleague and expert Carrie Clark
Co-Founder, California Healthy Workplace Advocates

[See post to watch Flash video]
 

Workplace Bullying: A Management Primer by Adam Penenberg

and

How to Handle a Workplace Bully by Jennifer Alsever

So at the beginning of our second decade, we must not be reticent about calling perpetrators and those who support them immoral. It is not our subjective morality that is violated, but the deeper sense of human dignity that is undermined when victims of bullying are not supported. We need to rekindle our compassion for those less fortunate than us whose fate was not their own making. Bully apologists have an indefensible, unconscionable position of favoring abuse.

Once we are bullied and feel the full force of a laser-focused campaign of interpersonal abuse, we drop the smug justifications for the bully. If we work long enough in enough different places and encounter enough incompetent bosses, we are likely to be bullied ourselves in our work life (37% of U.S. workers are). The only people who still doubt that bullying happens are the ones who have never suffered an unexpected, univited disaster or catastrophe. Events humble arrogant superiority known only to those lacking experience in bullying, direct or witnessed. But we should not have to wait for everyone to be personally bullied so that they understand how destructive bullying can be to personal health, careers, families, and employers.

Paraphrasing comments from a recent U.S. president: you are either with us or with the perpetrators. The fundamental question is to which side are your willing to commit?

There are not two equally compelling morally equivalent sides to the violence at work dilemma. No one targeted by bullying invited or wanted the intolerable misery. There is no “win-win” amicable mediated settlement possible in bullying situations. To tolerate a little bit of abuse, to appease perpetrators, is unacceptable. It is a moral compromise that leads to societal decline. It triggers retrospective questions such as, what have we allowed ourselves to become?

The choice is simple, actually. Do not squirm to make it complex. The ethical human choice transcends corporate or institutional needs.

Either side with the perpetrators of violence and rationalize and excuse the escalating trend toward hostility and abuse in the workplace

or

side with the targeted individuals who asked for nothing more than to be left alone to do the jobs they once loved.

Dr. Gary Namie, WBI

Read Part 1:  The Fundamental Question