CIA Cracks Down On Bullying & Harassment

An internal CIA document obtained by the Associated Press shows that the agency is disciplining abusive managers: 

“…These days, the CIA says it has a zero tolerance policy toward workplace harassment. And an agency document obtained by The Associated Press said 15 CIA employees were disciplined for committing sexual, racial or other types of harassment last year. That included a supervisor who was removed from the job after engaging in “bullying, hostile behavior,” and an operative who was sent home from an overseas post for inappropriately touching female colleagues, said the document, an internal message to the agency’s workforce.

The examples cited in the message, sent several weeks ago in an email by the director of the agency’s Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, were meant to show how the CIA is enforcing its strict policy. Continue reading

California Could Be First State To Take On Workplace Bullying

Milestone legislation requiring employers with 50+ employees add workplace bullying to already existing harassment training and education is making great headway in California. Stepping up legislation already on the books is long overdue. This bill is sponsored by Assembly Member Lorena Gonzalez and fueled by the efforts of Teamsters Local 2010, the Union of Clerical and Allied Service Workers of the University of California. Last month Union members testified at the State Capitol in support of the bill and received a unanimous bipartisan vote out of committee: Continue reading

Mobbing expert says What Killed Kevin is “an extraordinarily important documentary”

Ken Westhues is generally regarded as the global expert on the topic of Mobbing. He weighed in publicly this week on our documentary about workplace bullying, What Killed Kevin.

“…Read Harper’s review here of Beverly Peterson’s powerful documentary, What Killed Kevin?, a case study of the difference between focusing on alleged workplace bullies and grappling instead with the complexities of group dynamics…” “…an extraordinarily important documentary…”

Westhues recently brough his treasure trove of a website up to date — http://www.kwesthues.com/JaniceHarper.html

FORTUNE Article Asks “Why Are Workplace Anti-Bullying Bills Failing?

Fortune/CNN Money’s article by Jonathon A. Segal, “Hard to Define: Even Harder To Ban,” clearly recognizes the severity and devastating impact of workplace bullying on the American worker and their employers. It’s been over ten years and 25 states since the first version of the Healthy Workplace Bill was introduced and still no takers. Segal sees a message in this #fail. Continue reading

15 Years Later: Harassment Laws Still Broken

March 8, 1998 the Washington Post published an Op-Ed in response to a Supreme Court decision, Oncale v. Sundowner. Sadly, the essence of this Op-Ed still resonates today: “Predicating harassment suits on discrimination is also something of a mismatch; what bothers people about abusive workplace conduct, after all, is not the fact that it may be discriminatory but that it is abusive in the first place… Congress should decouple Continue reading

Justice Ginsburg Stands Up For Abused Employees

English: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justic...

It’s hard for targets of workplace bullying to prove their hostile work environment is a clear case of discrimination — bullying by definition falls outside of the protections of Title VII — but some plaintiffs still managed to win by proving they were fired or demoted in retaliation for filing a claim. Today’s Supreme Court decision just made that harder and a second “get out of jail free” card was awarded to businesses when SCOTUS narrowed the definition of whether that jerk harassing you is “technically” your supervisor. In what the Huffington Post called a “rare move,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told the court: “Both decisions dilute the strength of Title VII in ways Congress could not have intended,” said Ginsburg, who then called on Congress to change the law to overturn the court.” In Vance v Ball Ginsburg wrote: Continue reading