Category Archives: workplace bullying

“Malice” & The Healthy Workplace Bill

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For years the model template for workplace bullying legislation – the Healthy Workplace Bill – contained the word “malice” and a $25,000 cap. Legal scholars and critics questioned why the bill’s author, Law Professor David Yamada, and the leader of the lobbying effort, Dr. Gary Namie of the the Workplace Bullying Institute, insisted on including this extraordinarily high hurdle. If you believe the whacky spin that critics of the language are trying to take over the movement then listen for yourself to a clip from What Killed Kevin that reveals what Dr. Namie has to say about his own bill and how difficult it is to prove “malice”:

What Killed Kevin, Dir: Peterson

‘That is the lawsuit killer right there people… the phrase, acting with malice is what the employers should read as, “Wow! We’re off the hook.” Because, you know, rarely can that be proven.” Dr. Gary Namie, WBI Continue reading →

Employer #fails in attempt to flip bullying policy against employees

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Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

A recent NLRB decision may help protect that venting you’ve been doing about your job on Facebook – so long as it falls under very specific criteria. But, it also shows how an employer can try to flip that “zero tolerance” “bullying & harassment policy” against employees. Slate summed it up this way: “The case—Hispanics United of Buffalo—started one Saturday morning in 2010. That was when domestic violence advocate Mariana Cole-Rivera took to Facebook to complain that one of her co-workers was unfairly accusing fellow employees of laziness. Several other staffers at Hispanics United of Buffalo chimed in to say they worked plenty hard already. Soon after Cole-Rivera and her co-workers returned to work, HUB fired five of them, arguing that their off-the-clock comments had violated the nonprofit’s anti-harassment policy.”  The NLRB decision ruled against HUB’s use of the bullying policy for the terminations: Continue reading →

The Dark Side of The Workplace Bully/Victim

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“..the majority of bully-typifying traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychoticism, and the aggression measures) were associated with being a victim…”

Many surveys show that 25-35% of today’s American workforce self-report that they are suffering the devastating impact of bully bosses. But, as a new Canadian study shows, it’s not always that simple. Take for example the darker side of bullying – the Bully/Victim. Apparently some victims may share certain personality traits with their bully; disagreeableness, dominance, and aggression. And, as noted above, this includes the “dark triad” associated with bullying behavior; machiavellianism, narcissism, psychoticism. “As an example, the bully-typifying trait verbal aggression may be directly associated with the bullying of others (Parkins, Fishbein, & Ritchey, 2006). It is also, however, associated with argumentativeness (Diamond, 2005), a possible ‘annoying’ factor that may provoke others to bully those who score highly on the trait.”

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OSHA vs Hollywood

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OSHA vs. Hollywood: Round 1 Guest Post from Compliance And Safety analyzes movie and T.V shows for OSHA violations with the help of a professional safety consultant.

Workplace safety does not receive much mainstream exposure. The vast majority of the U.S population does not know what OSHA is or what it regulates. We’re intent on changing that.  In this post, we’ll analyze the $250 million dollar 90′s blockbuster Enemy of the State and NBC’s The Office for OSHA violations.A special thanks goes out to contributing safety expert Anne Evans for her assistance in creating this post.(1998) Enemy Of The State, Supply Room Scene. CLIP ENDS AT 03:20This clip is from the late 90′s blockbuster ‘Enemy of the State’. What’s especially interesting about this clip is that the management had the audacity to place a ‘Safety First’ poster in the same room as a handful of critical OSHA violations. Sadly this type of gross negligence coupled with minimal effort to create the appearance of compliance (such as a ‘Safety First’ sign) is far too common in actual workplaces. In this case, Hollywood’s depiction of workplace safety is not so different than reality. Continue reading →

The “Enlightened” Narcissist

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Enlightened_StuntArt_LauraAmy, played by Laura Dern, is the main character in the Golden Globe winning HBO series, Enlightened. The program’s brilliant co-creator, Mike White, often steals the show as loveable, and presumably invisible, Tyler. When the marketing team for the series contacted us with artwork and a request to help promote their show on this blog I couldn’t resist imagining what would happen if “Amy”, whose newly enlightened state leaves her with an inner need to defend the victimized, decided to advocate against workplace bullying. The way Dern & White have written her character, she would no doubt end up as both victim and perpetrator. I once had a friend who was an Ad Exec who suddenly saw the light and the crass error of his career when he spent a weekend at an EST “experience.” His marketing talent helped him quickly rise within the packaged enlightenment program. That is, until he was ousted for attacking too many disciples as not getting “it.” He was brutal in his desire to show the newbies that they could never reach his level of awareness. Amy would no doubt find bullies everywhere in her corporate walls and neglect to see that she has become one herself. Here’s an example of a storyline from season one: Continue reading →

Mercy, what will become of us?

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usatoday.com

Shortly after the shooting began in Newtown, Connecticut many Facebook advocates  suspected bullying as a root cause. But, it was clear that the media had learned an ethical lesson from erroneously making that link too quickly after Columbine. In fact, Education Week has found that for some time the Newtown School District did everything right to prevent bullying. Later, in response to false reports that Adam Lanza’s mother was a teacher at the elementary school, advocates were intuitively convinced that Lanza was exacting revenge for his mother against an egregious bully boss. By now we all know that Nancy Lanza had no relationship with the school.

Dr. Peter Ash, a forensic psychiatrist told CNN: “Killers tend to blame others, not themselves, for their problems. Mass killers tend to target people whom they imagine would torment them, or whom they blame for their distress.” Bullying has long been considered a risk factor for workplace shootings but it is not necessarily causal. Joe Scarborough, a conservative advocate of gun rights, spoke for many republicans who were deeply conflicted by the school massacre: “It is time for Congress to put children before deadly dogmas… For the sake of my four children and yours, I choose life and I choose change.” But, not everyone is willing to put rhetoric aside. Yesterday the Workplace Bullying Institute highlighted the massacred teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary School as martyrs and denounced the “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and the incendiary profit-driven Michelle Rhee. None are school teachers. They pontificate from a fly-over altitude…” The WBI article ends  with a call to supporters: “To honor these martyrs, the next time the teacher haters rev up in 2013 with proposed legislation, join us in calling them exactly what they are.  Continue reading →