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
Op-ed re-printed from Courier News – CentralJersey.com (Gannett), November 21, 2013
Workplace bullying is an important 21st century issue widely covered in the media and the internet. It is estimated to affect one-half of American workers, either as a victim or an observer of workplace bullying.
Columnist Jay Jefferson Cooke’s Nov. 10 article on bullying between football players prompted me to write this letter. Having tried workplace bullying cases in the NJ Workers’ Compensation Court before my retirement, I know that severe psychiatric injuries can result from workplace bullying; especially, when others gang up on the victim or condone the actions of the perpetrators by their silence. Employers also suffer negative consequences such as reduced productivity of its employees and increased medical expenditures.
Recently, a group of individuals from academia, law and the public with personal interest in the topic formed the National Workplace Bullying Coalition (NWBC), formerly known as the NJ Workplace Bullying Coalition, to take action on the issue. Continue reading
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
What’s the best way to address workplace bullying? California’s largest union (SEIU 1000) decided to do it by simply expanding the workplace violence portion of their Dignity Clause (See documents below). Each state department is required to maintain and distribute a “workplace violence & bullying” policy to their employees. Just north of us, Ontario Bill 168 does the same thing. Unions have played an historic role in America as the advocate for the voiceless worker and this of course begs the question – why haven’t union leaders made this case to legislators to follow Ontario’s lead in using workplace violence as the basis of legislative protection for millions of suffering workers? Continue reading
Several years ago Connecticut State Senator Edith Prague wanted to pass workplace bullying legislation for public employees. The opposition argued that it was already covered under workplace violence policies and a study was requested to determine if it was indeed included. I was filming Prague’s support of the Healthy Workplace Bill at the time and remember well that she was passionate about the topic and surprised to learn that the handbook policies put in place after a tragic workplace 1998 shooting nearly 10 years earlier actually did address bullying behavior. The 2008 report concluded that: Continue reading
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
OUR BULLY PULPIT 