US Chamber of Commerce protects rapists in Iraq !

This just in from Moveon.org:

The US Chamber of Commerce [a bullying corporate lobby organization - CHWA words] has sent a letter to Congress saying that it would "set a dangerous precedent" to allow rape victims into court. The worst news? The Chamber has enough clout to tie up the bill for years, unless we fight back.

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was working for a private contractor in Iraq when she was brutally gang-raped by coworkers. Four years later, Jamie is still being denied justice.

Jamie can't file U.S. criminal charges because the rape took place overseas, and a fine-print clause in her contract takes away her right to file a lawsuit in the U.S.

Congress is working to protect the rights of rape victims like Jamie.* But, shockingly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is fighting it. They say that it would "set a dangerous precedent" to allow rape victims into court.

Organizations endorsing the petition include the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, Public Citizen, Consumer Action, Workplace Fairness, National Association of Consumer Advocates, Take Back Your Rights PAC, Alliance for Justice, and the Jamie Leigh Foundation.

A compiled petition with your individual comment will be presented to U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue.
http://pol.moveon.org/chamber/rape/


*Senator Al Franken has proposed an accepted amendment to right this wrong. When Moveon.org speaks, the Chamber is fearful. The mightly, wealthy Chamber knows the US voters' values are represented by this organization. So speak up and sign that petition. You don't have to join their organization to show you care.

UC anti-bullying legislation fell out!

California State Assemblymember Tom Torlakson of Antioch, California sponsored a Concurrent Resolution to appropriate $180,000 for voluntary participation in workplace bullying training for managers. Unfortunately, this resolution died in the appropriations committee.

Mr. Torlakson, who is running for State Superintendent of Public Instruction has no plans to go forward at this time. He is concerned that that the press would twist the issue into a controversy. Interestingly, the “educational establishment” has often been the lead opponents of the Healthy Workplace Bill because they are loath to lose absolute power over educators who are not in their inner circle.

The floor vote for this in the Assembly was all ‘ayes’ for Democrats and all ‘noes’ for Republicans. The California University Employees Union first brought the idea to the Member. The resolution was voluntary because our state legislature cannot place requirements on University of California schools, as it can on California State University schools for which it serves as regent.

Staffer Monique Ramos from the Torlakson office commented, “What the issue needs is education.” Yes, we first the education to correct and prevent. But in the end, without a legal club, no bully will stop the bad behavior. They are not cognitively capable.

The response to Ramos was, “We’ve been trying for a decade and we will keep up the good cause.” What opponents fail to realize is that this bill would easily pay for itself.

Assemblymember Torlakson’s government site can be reached for ‘thank you messages’ from Bullybusters. At least he tried. http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/members/a11/


To read the bill analysis, see: http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/asm/ab_0051-0100/acr_55_cfa_20090530_134517_asm_floor.html

Bill documents can be read at: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=acr_55&sess=CUR

Bill history for ACR #55: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/asm/ab_0051-0100/acr_55_cfa_20090630_095254_sen_comm.html

From California Assembly Concurrent Resolution #55:

Urges the training be presented by trainers or educators
with knowledge and expertise in the prevention of
workplace bullying.

1) Fiscal impact . According to the Assembly
Appropriations Committee analysis, this bill has
estimated one-time costs of approximately $180,000 for
UC to develop the course content and materials and plan
for the implementation of the training. In addition,
there would be ongoing costs of about $50,000 in
consulting contracts to provide the training as well as
additional, but unknown costs associated with staff time
to attend training.

Chamber of Commerce is Chamber of Horrors this Holloween

While most Americans thought of the Chamber of Commerce as a social organization to which local merchants belong, it has evolved into a powerful Washington and state-level lobbying organization that opposes all things American. Those include labor rights, environmental protections, progressive industrialization and technological advancements.

The anti-workplace bullying movement and the Healthy Workplace Bill face the Chamber of Commerce as the most formidable opponent. Whenever this bill reaches legislative floor votes, it is the Chamber that is most verbal in calling this morally responsible bill "A Job Killer!"

Hiding behind its mask as "The Protector of Small Business," the Chamber is in fact the exact corporate giants who are putting small business out of business in this nation. Though they employ more Americans than any other sector, small businesses (those with 100 or fewer employees, by definition, depending on the industry) are the largest employers, even in this recession-era economy. To add insult to injury, banks recently bailed out by We the Taxpayers will not lend to small businesses. The TARP language included no such language when it was rushed through Congress by the out-going Bush administration.

The United States of America is being bullied by the US Chamber of Commerce!

The $300,000 spent daily by these same huge, largely global corporations to stop health care reform and to squelch the public option, comes from the same behemoths that commandeer the Chamber of Commerce. Local Chambers are crying for change in our health care system. They are going out of business from the high cost of supplying health insurance to employees.

And the Chamber is lying about their membership in the process.

The Wall Street Journal, moveon.org, and Mother Jones have all reported that the national Chamber is boasting it has 3,000,000 member businesses when it only has about 200,000. That's only 6.666...% of their false claim. The Chamber is hiding behind the very people they are destroying in our deregulated, laissez-faire capitalistic economy. And Congress is buying their lies at our expense. Or should we say that the Chamber of Commerce is buying Congress?

1. "U.S. Chamber Spent a Record $34.7 Million on Lobbying in Past 3 Months," The Wall Street Journal, October 19, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=85026&id=17752-6792541-sfL8qfx&t=3
2. "The Chamber's Numbers Game," Mother Jones, October 13, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=85045&id=17752-6792541-sfL8qfx&t=4
3. "Chamber Rejects Use of Term '3 Million Members,'" Mother Jones, October 23, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=85030&id=17752-6792541-sfL8qfx&t=5
4. "U.S Chamber of Commerce: About Us," U.S. Chamber of Commerce website, accessed October 30, 2009
http://www.uschamber.com/about/default.htm
5. "Survey of Business Owners," U.S. Census Bureau, accessed October 30, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=85048&id=17752-6792541-sfL8qfx&t=6

Dr. Gary Namie explains workplace bullying

Workplace bullying is NOT simply tough management.

While workplace bullying takes several forms, it is always repeated, health-harming mistreatment that disrupts the productive flow of work. This interview of Dr. Gary Namie of the Workplace Bullying Institute explains this hateful behavior.

While the WBI is located in Bellingham, Washington, the Drs. Ruth and Gary Namie, are psychologists with an international reputation. Thanks to their 15-year dedication to exposing this silent epidemic of abuse, they have helped to educate the United States and Canada to this key problem in the North American workforce.

http://www.break.com/usercontent/2009/7/dr-gary-namie-talks-about-bullying-in-the-workplace-on-kvos-862099.html

While watching, keep in mind that status-blind (non-discriminatory) workplace bullying is presently legal! Most Americans believe that all harassment is against the law. Not so.

Which state will become the first state to pass this progressive, common-sense law? New York? Illinois? Wisconsin? They all have bills like California once had but lost when our present governor came into office. For interesting reasons, that bill suddenly went "poof"!

Workplace bullying brought down the world economy

If it sounds hyperbolic that workplace bullying could bring down an entire world economy, think about the communicative property of mathematics. If a = b and b = c, then a = c. Simple! Now, consider a journalistic analysis published over this October 17, 2009 weekend by news reporter Kevin G. Hall of McClatchy Company: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/economy/story/77244.html

“As the housing market collapsed in late 2007, Moody’s Investors Service, whose investment ratings were widely trusted, responded by purging analysts and executives who warned of trouble and promoting those who helped Wall Street plunge the country [and therefore world investors] into its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.”

As this horrific tale of work abuse goes, Bullying Boss Brian Clarkson was made the draconian head CEO of this economically pivotal organization which ranks the credit worthiness of borrowers for commercial and government entities. Clarkson’s reign of terror at Moody’s right when the bottom was falling from the US housing market. He railroaded a narrow-minded notion he called “structured finance” down the throats of experts who knew better. Anyone who dared to speak up became a target for workplace bullying and was fired. Compliance with Securities and Exchange Commission regulations to safeguard the rest of us, “Be damned!” Bullies walk above the law.

Does this sound familiar to Healthy Workplace Advocates, or what? No doubt Clarkson was considered a heroically strong leader by the few who kissed up to keep their jobs, the cronies in power on Moody’s board, the investors whose pockets were bulging with faux money, and the stooges who were brought in by Clarkson. That’s the way it goes with workplace bullies. Yet, the emperor had no clothes. Now the rest of us are naked too.

Had there been an Abusive Work Environments Act, the targeted analysts and executives would have had legal recourse to act against this financial terrorist who destroyed the credibility of our economy. Checks and balances for civility and legal reporting are not yet existent in the American workplace. Anyone who thinks this country can tread longer in the denial of how workplace bullying ravages our nation or that it can be tamed without a hand from the law, is woefully ignorant.

‘M’ in healthcare stands for “money,” not “medicine”

Critical care is badly needed for the United States’ ailing heathcare non-system. We as a nation are being bullied by the “medical industry” into paying a 50% markup for medical care that does not anywhere compete with other “First World” nations’ quality of care and medical delivery systems.

Film producer Alex Gibney (Enron, the Smartest Guys in the Room) offers a documentary film based on Maggie Mahar’s book, Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much. This informative film is about how US medical care comes through a free-market enterprise and not through a “health care system.” Most nations have medical systems, loosely designed to treat the patients like citizens instead of like profit centers. Bill Moyers’ Journal offers a shortened version of this truth-daring film. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html

Mahar clears up the mystery of the “medical industrial complex” that feeds off those it cultivates like farm products. “Informed consent is informed persuasion” speaks to the hard sell with missing and superfluous information directed slightly above the head of the investor or person who happens to own the body being treated. This hard sell for medical care is directed at patients, their families, employers, our state governments, and federal politicians.

We are not getting the bang for our bucks. The cost of service is grossly inflated. We are getting sicker and the health care industry loves it for they are making money on the backs of our sick.

“Show me the money” is being cried from both sides of our recent health reform debate. Maggie Mahar shows us where the money is hidden. Money mysteries of this cryptic social institution have highly specialized language. Few of us are expected to understand, let alone read in a thousand-page bill. That includes every lawmaker in Washington which is why they have research staff.

But all this artificial confusion can and will be resolved once this moment in our history becomes infused with humanity and civility. We need to apply the Golden Rule. We need to set our prioities for American assets. Do we want sick Americans and healthy warheads? If we are the "Best Country in the World," it's time we start to act that way by caring for the weakest among us. http://www.healthbeatblog.org/

Other countries have fixed this and so can the Unitied States. Other countries know better than to place their employers in the impossible position of providing both a decent workplace and healthcare. The world is watching us Americans while we push, prod, shove then rob the sick, the elderly, and our children. Now there’s some real bullying!

Congressman 'Bullies Up' at Town Hall Meeting

Congressman McClintock bullied up at town hall –

Whenever a minority party in any government finds itself at the short end of a losing stick on important issues, they tend to ‘bully up.’ They rally their troops to fight dirty, to throw superfluous arguments at the majority, and to obstruct all reasonable argumentation. That is precisely what went on at town hall meetings across the US during this recent long, hot summer of Republican discontent. http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2159726.html

Town halls on healthcare reform quickly depreciated into shouting rallies for the dissemination of disinformation spread by big money from the medical-industrial complex. The message read: “I’ve got mine. The rest of you can go [Fill in your own blank].” For this reason, reasonable people failed to attend the town halls in great numbers. Why would people go where they were not wanted to share their thoughts or knowledge, even if they knew the negative medical outcomes of our present dysfunctional, market-driven non-system?

Faux town hall meetings in District 4 of Northern California displayed how truthful dialog could be grossly perverted. Congressman Tom McClintock, a freshman this term, presented several sham town halls this summer. Reports from progressive thinkers who have begged for health care reform for two generations described a horrendous display of McClintock’s political manipulations.

This career politician, who termed out of his state legislative seat after 27 years as California’s most obstructionist law-blocker in modern politics, promised equal participation for both sides of healthcare reform. Then he didn’t enforce the alternating of opinions as he promised, like a teacher who lets the jocks mow over the skaters in a classroom. The ‘nay’ crowd outnumbered the ’yea’ crowd, so the Good Congressman likely rationalized his false promise as he rationalized his pitiful bill-sponsoring record when he claimed to be a Southern California lawmaker.

The September 1, 2009 town hall meeting was attended by very confused people. McClintock did very little to explain the legislation. Perhaps the Congressman himself understands little about the extremely complex medical delivery non-system that is made up of complicated jargon which only medical industry employees and bureaucrats might clearly understand. At this meeting there were about 175 pro-reform people and about 350 anti-reform people. (Notice that pro-reformers stayed home, lest they be screamed at by hate-radio mongers.)

One progressive, who did catch an open microphone to speak, reminded McClintock that “…the tax credit he continued to tout was in fact for $2,000 a year and the average cost of a health care premium is $1,086 a month. He [McClintock] conceded the credit was not enough.” Did the opponents of reform bother to listen or begin to understand, if they even tried to hear this important point?

But when this same pro-reformer delivered to the Congressman the 3,000 signatures of supporters for Obama’s health care principals, she was ignored, “I got a bit flustered and didn't want to get into McClintock's personal space - so I dropped the bag on the floor near the front row... it was awkward... and then to compound it, McClintock later characterized this as "having a suitcase thrown at him."

Mr. McClintock needs to be reminded how he won his seat with a very narrow margin of a few more than 1500 votes. He perhaps missed the redistricting initiative for California while learning political ropes in DC. Many of the people who voted for McClintock have since lost their jobs and therefore their health care too. Ahh, oh!

Other of his voters are already on government-sponsored Medicare but have adult children in their 20’s. The 20’s is the decade when most young people haven’t secured healthcare-paying careers. Perhaps those lucky Medicare voters now have children in their 30’s with chronically ill children of their own. Maybe their kids are in their 40’s when daughters so often get divorced, losing a husband’s benefits. Maybe their sons are in their 50’s and suffer being bullied off the job so they won’t cost an employer should they become ill and therefore expensive.

All Americans, regardless of politics, get sick and start to die. We will all need doctor, hospital, pharmaceutical, and insurance corporations to make possibly bullying, investor-focused medical decisions. Then, those who voted for McClintock will join the rest of us who can only pray for an ever-fading Golden Rule with its universal ethic to do unto others as we would have done unto ourselves…or our children.

Workers Bullied off the Job for Being Sick -

Healthy Workplace Advocates are hearing from targets of work abuse who were indeed bullied off their jobs because they or their family members became seriously ill. In our present non-system of employer-sponsored health care, an employer’s “experience rating” is based on the number of claims the employees make through the insurance company that carries the policy. Like car insurance: If you make a claim, your rates go up! The same thing happens with medical insurance.

Employers, especially small business owners, can ill afford to keep ill employees on the job. For reasons involving the American with Disabilities Act, the employer is then better off to bully sick employees out the door (constructive discharge) than to honestly tell them that they are costing the company too much money. Because employees or theirs family member are sick and might make too many medical claims, they would drive up the medical insurance experience rating and the costs to the entire workforce employed. Small businesses have been known to shut down for this reason.

The United States’ market-driven, medical non-system is sick!

While Tom McClintock has helped his party bully up to the majority people, he needs to know the “law of reciprocity.” He needs to understand, “what goes around, comes around.” He is hurting real Americans, both liberal and conservative. What may be a Republican party game to him is a life-and-death game for the rest of us. http://www.gawkk.com/mcclintock-heads-townhall-meeting-in-placer-county/discuss

Oprah.com puts focus on workplace bullying

Oprah.com puts focus on workplace bullying, finally! – Check this out! Oprah producers are recognizing our mission and the hard work of the Workplace Bullying Institute.

California Healthy Workplace Advocates, please read this site and leave a comment. Ask that the Oprah Show go further with this important social issue and the movement so many of us have worked so long to expose.

http://www.oprah.com/article/health/wellnessandprevention/20090922-orig-workplace-bullying#startcom

Workplace Bullying can lead to "shattered core beliefs about human relationships"

Book Review: Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma

“Why is severe, malicious workplace bullying so traumatic for many targets? A 1992 book by University of Massachusetts psychologist Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma, offers valuable insights. According to author, Janoff-Bulman, victims of intentional, malevolent harm may find that the mistreatment they experienced fractured their core beliefs about human relationships. They now face unique and difficult psychological challenges." Quoted from Dr. David Yamada's blog at:

http://newworkplace.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/why-severe-workplace-bullying-can-be-so-traumatizing/

Statistics on Suicide in the Workplace Shock Healthy Workplace Advocates!

California Healthy Workplace Advocates respectfully acknowledge today, Sept. 10, 2009, as National Suicide Prevention Day. It's difficult NOT to link workplace bullying with workplace suicides. Last month, the U.S. Department of Labor released the following statistics:

"Increase in Occupational Fatalities due to Suicide Preliminary data from the 2008 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) program reported 251 workplace suicides, their highest level since the inception of the CFOI program in 1992. The 2008 count is 28 percent higher than the 196 suicides recorded in 2007. Further information on the increase in occupational fatalities due to suicide is available at www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/osar0010.pdf."

According to Chris Penttila, reporter for Examinier.com, "These figures don’t include employee suicides that happened away from work property, however. More than 30,000 Americans die as a result of suicide every year --- making it the fourth leading cause of death for adults ages 18 to 65, according to the Feeling Blue Suicide Prevention Council, a Pennsylvania-based organization that works both to prevent suicides and to support the people affected by them."
http://www.feelingblue.org/about-suicide/facts-figures

“Even more sobering: The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention reports that 90 Americans will kill themselves today, and 2,300 more will try.”
http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=050FEA9F-B064-4092-B1135C3A70DE1FDA

Will these statistics go down when states in the United States have a Healthy Workplace law? Will a law that corrects and prevents workplace bullying, much like the sexual harrassement laws we now have, prevent workplace suicides? We believe so. We believe the time has come to advance our society to the next level of humane treatment...remember the "Golden Rule"?

Healthy Workplace Bill to correct and prevent Workplace Bullying, it's time has come...

Battle over Workers’ Compensation insurance rates looms

Here we go again. The elections of next fall, which will make major shifts in political office holders, promise workers’ compensation insurance rates as a key item for debate. While the great Schwarzenegger fix of our State’s workers’ comp system kept the lid on the rates for a short while, it was very much at the expense of the workers. That would be We the People. Workers’ benefits and the chance of proving work-related injury have greatly diminished. Employers happily enjoyed reduced premiums for a while. No more. Those insurance rates are sneaking up like mites on tights and employer’s squeaking is turning into shouts of “no fair!” Maybe legislators will take California Healthy Workplace Advocates seriously now when we tell them we have a bill that will greatly reduce worker’s compensation claims. http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/024634.html

Watch out! The governor is thinking about selling off State Fund, the compensation fund that helps pool small businesses together to get better rates. If this sale to private insurance carriers happens, small business rates for workers’ comp will go even higher. Will the Chamber of Commerce let this happen without protest? The Chamber so often hides its true colors behind the small-business-protection shield, though everyone knows that the Chamber is dominated by huge corporations. http://www.sacbee.com/capitolandcalifornia/story/2124061.html

Workplace Bullying? Arnold swinging sword on twitter...

One can tell the character of a man by the way he handles power. In this Twitter video, Arnold handles a knife to symbolize the butchering of the California budget.This video is most revealing.Those who work in the Capitol can recall clearly the bullying politicians who would throw chairs at staffers when the bullies were angry. Thank goodness the budget was signed before someone was hurt...someone in addition to the poor.

Now that the budget has been signed, many will be hurt by the cuts, including the environment which has once again been sold to large oil corporations who do not pay their fair share of taxes. These oil companies own the Chamber of Commerce and the minority politicians who refuse a Constitutional Convention. For now, minority rules because of the 2/3’s vote to pass a tax hike as it was slipped into Proposition 13 by…big oil companies, the Jarvis tax conservatives, and the Chamber.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOCHtasxmIY

Workplace Bullying link to employee's suicide

Employee commits suicide on supervisor’s porch –

Facts in this case will not likely ever be known. But read this sad, California news story and imagine what should be written between the lines. Was this man simply crazy, or was he driven crazy by ill treatment from his supervisor?
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_12957838

Society has little sympathy for those who commit suicide, despite our knowing that one can physiologically be driven to kill oneself due to psychological abuse. See what others wrote in the blog about this unsettling case. Might a Healthy Workplace Bill have prevented injury to all who were involved, including the children on both sides?
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/santa-cruz-sentinel/TSFDEHG5DNEFSG5OO

Workers are more important than money! Happy Labor Day

California Healthy Workplace Advocates agree with the original Illinois Healthy Workplace Advocate, Abraham Lincoln....as quoted here, "Capital is only the fruit of labor,
and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.
Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much
the higher consideration.”
-Abraham Lincoln
We agree! Help us pass a law to protect laborers from workplace bullying. To learn more about legislation to correct and prevent workplace bullying, go to www.bullyfreeworkplace.org. Happy Labor Day!

Octogenarians bullied into excessive medical care

Medical over treatment of elderly is common, based on experience of many baby boomers who are caring for dying parents.

While screaming about Granny being left to die because of health insurance reform, no one is speaking about the over treatment of the elderly. This is precisely why a Republican proposed the end-of-life counseling for those over 65. Many, if not most of us, have no idea about “durable power of attorney” papers and “living wills” or “do not resuscitate orders” until we either help our parents through their dying process or see that our own deaths are imminent. By then we are stressed out and lacking in reason.

Nor do Americans know until a loved one dies how heart breaking it can be to watch an octogenarian being bullied into medical care such as radical chemotherapy, immediately after he has been diagnosed with rapidly-spreading, fourth-stage lung cancer that has already metastasized into his breast bone.

Witnessing a loved one’s reduction to ‘cash cow’ or ‘guinea pig’ status for the sake of padding the pockets of a cancer care doctor corporation or hospital corporation is gut-wrenching. The gain: two more extremely depressing months of diaper-dependent, bed rest while struggling to swallow 100 pills daily.

To pray for the mercy of death changes the way one views the world around and the money-driven medical care that has so corrupted this country. Few of us dare to speak of this.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/16/opinion/l-medical-overtreatment-of-elderly-is-common-living-will-solution-396892.html

Bullying, greed, propaganda and lies try to stop health insurance reform

Even to the extent of maligning Canada and Britain, “…the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies,” could prevent millions of American families from being broken and bankrupted by health care’s, market-driven non-system that has run amuck.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html?scp=1&sq=It%20was%20the%20blooper%20heard%20round%20the%20world&st=cse

We American US citizens who have lived and received medical care in the UK or Canada know better. We are ashamed of fellow Americans whose ignorance prevails over their common sense. These are lies told about our closest allies who do not at all appreciate the disparagement.

Other lies include the one about the United States having the best medicine in the world. Not so! We don’t have the best outcomes. We don’t promote medical research, except that which serves private industry. We were not world leaders in laser technology to medicine. We are still performing global fusions on our spines while many other countries are installing the artificial disk. Medical research is left largely to venture capitalists because our government so seldom gets behind the funding.

If an American has one of the 5000 listed “orphan diseases,” he will wait ‘til hell freezes over before a cure would come from his own country. America may be the best country in the world, but just don’t get sick, with or without health insurance.
http://www.bostonherald.com/jobfind/news/healthcare/view/20090816health_care_reform_alone_wont_make_us_healthier_experts_say/.

Is this free speech, hate speech, stupidity, racism, hyperbole, or bullying?

Republican South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said in a conference call with Conservatives for Patient Rights, "If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”

So this U.S. Senator openly admits he wants a new U.S. President to fail. He also said, “This health care issue Is D-Day for freedom in America."

So this man believes that administering to our nation’s children, elderly, poor, and sick will end our freedoms. Is this free speech, hate speech, stupidity, racism, hyperbole, or bullying? All of the above. One ponders if the good Senator might also claim to be a good Christian.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0709/Health_reform_foes_plan_Obamas_Waterloo.htm1

"SPOILERS" continue to spread fear

Medical industry and hospital building boom finally goes bust

Ben Bernanke blamed the US budget deficit on rising medical costs due to “the hospital building boom.” Corporate hospital CEO’s drove towns and suburbs to build palatial facilities, each with its own atrium, two-story waterfall, and heart clinic. Each had to have state-of-the-art machines that would cost $6000 for a single patient’s 10-minute session of pictures, per doctor requests, that were only required while machines were otherwise idle and Medicare or Medicaid would pay. Japan MRI’s cost $150 per use, according to PBS’s “Sick around the World.” If an American has no coverage, he might pay the special price of $8000. If she has assets and cares about her credit score, she slowly pays off that bill and its accumulated interest which is likely on her credit card.

But the hospital and medical boom is coming quickly to a halt. People are not seeking medical treatment because of the recession. States and counties are cutting back on payments to hospitals or issuing IOU’s. Investors are getting afraid to buy stocks in medical corporations of any kind. Change needs to come, now! And everybody knows it, including the “spoilers” who offer no solutions of their own, but continue to shout about their fears implanted by huge corporations that supply medical goods and services. Such is the fate of all robber barons. Such is the fate of those who practice ‘I’ve-got-mine:-the-rest-of-you-can-go-fish-for-it.’

http://www.hfmmagazine.com/hfmmagazine_app/jsp/articledisplay.jsp?dcrpath=HFMMAGAZINE/Article/data/02FEB2009/0902HFM_FEA_CoverStory&domain=HFMMAGAZINE

California Healthy Workplace Advocates say it's time for change. Let's NOT take the public option off the table...WE ARE THE PUBLIC!! Let's take care of ourselves and not simply line the pockets of those who shout the loudest and are fighting to keep the already failing status quo.

California Healthy Workplace Advocates find data on hospital industry

Real data on hospital industry, medical corporations, medical suppliers, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical profits almost impossible to find:

The rising costs of US health care, therefore health insurance, are not true measurements of real costs. They are the result of gouging, profiteering, unchecked lobbying practices, excessive advertising, and gross inefficiencies in delivery, measurements of outcomes, system irregularities, and smorgasbord regulation shuffling from state to state. http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2061111.html

Real data from Kaiser Family Foundation is readily available:

“The Foundation is an independent voice and source of facts and analysis for policymakers, the media, the health care community, and the general public. The Foundation publishes research and analysis to foster understanding of increasingly complex policy issues in the U.S. Much of the work focuses on the issues and debates affecting those most vulnerable and disadvantaged, including Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries, the uninsured people living with HIV/AIDS, low-income women, and racial and ethnic minorities, helping policymakers and the media understand what’s driving changes in the health system.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Family_Foundation#What_the_Foundation_currently_does
a. Medical costs reached $7,498 per person in 2008, twice higher than any
other nation.
b. Average family deductible for PPO increased 30% to 64% in two years.
c. New York Times/CBS News poll said 85% of respondents want fundamental
change.
d. Same poll said 72% support a government administered health insurance
plan.
e. Spoiler campaign of health care industry is spending $1.4 million a day.

California Healthy Workplace Advocates say it is time for change...

Conservative Republican, David Frum, supports health insurance reform. This very well-respected Republican explains that “[Employers are] paying a lot more for labor, about 25 percent more. All of that increase in the wage fund was consumed by the cost of benefits.”

Frum, an insider in the G. W. Bush administration, says that victory against reform will be victory for the status quo. Health insurance regulation at state-level isn’t working in the health market. Rising health care costs wiped out all of the Bush tax cut benefits. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08142009/watch2.html

While you are on Moyers’ site, watch or read his interview with media analyst Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Kaiser Family Foundation president and CEO Drew Altman [who] discuss the messages in health care ads today, and how well they reflect [or don’t reflect] the real issues of health care reform.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08142009/watch.html

Bullying in the Media

Hateful fight against Health Insurance Reform rages on...

Town hall bullies shout out, stopping others’ free speech – From the PBS News Hour you can watch this debate between former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey, chair of FreedomWorks, a conservative group that has shamelessly practiced obstructionism and rallied protestors at health care town hall meetings and Richard Kirsch, the national campaign manager of Health Care for America Now, a liberal group which has urged its supporters to turn out at the meetings.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/module.html?mod=0&pkg=13082009&seg=3

Next, read this blog on how those who shout down others’ freedom of speech are hypocrites when they cry their free speech is being exercised. Bullies do kick sand into faces on the beach. http://www.workplacebullying.org/2009/08/10/town-hall-bullies/

Evidently, these people can only shout as they are instructed.They don’t even seem to know that they are being used or that socialism and communism are the opposite of Nazis fascism. http://www.sacbee.com/babin/image_media/2109569.html

Was Harvard professor bullied or bullying?

We learned from this single incident that certain behaviors are not acceptable and should be checked. Nationally renowned social-anthropologist, Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested on his front porch for misbehavior toward a police officer. Prof. Gates is of African-American ethnicity. The arresting officer was many years the professor’s junior, a police instructor of profiling techniques, and Caucasian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Louis_Gates_arrest_incident"

The question remains: Should Professor Gates sue for racial discrimination?

"Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, an organization that has sued the New York Police Department many times on behalf of individuals and groups, told [the ethicist] that lawsuits can be ‘an important tool for reform when coupled with advocacy and public education efforts and when the circumstances are conducive to change.’” http://ethicist.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/why-henry-louis-gates-should-sue/

Barack Obama called this incident a “teachable moment." Can we Americans learn from this incident about the racism that continues to haunt this country? Or do we just take sides? http://www.workplacebullying.org/2009/08/04/teachable/

Black, Latino, and Native American mothers and fathers teach their sons about what to do when they will be arrested for crimes not committed. The problem is just this common.

Workplace Bullying in mobile home parks is rampant

An all too common problem in California's Mobile Home Park communities, residents of this mobile home park in the San Fernando Valley are dealing with rotting infrastructure and management that not only doesn’t care, but also fires back with retaliation for complaints, another scenario seldom tagged as workplace bullying, but most certainly is. Many of these complaints are not only valid, they are within parameters of present Mobile Residency law, guarding the welfare of the mobile home residents and the communities being served by the park’s very existence.

How sad that this story includes an 8-day trial where the tenets prevailed because, among other things, the judge pointed out that they put up with years of “inexcusably rude, petty and bullying behavior."

Unlike other tenants of residential property, mobile home owners cannot simply pack up their belongings and ship off to the next abode. They have to bear the huge expense of shipping their abode with them as well. Mobile Home Park Owners know this and take severe advantage of the mobile home owners they pack tightly together their parks.

Often these parks have service systems (sewers, roads, hookups, etc.) that are aging while the property values continue to rise. Park owners are known to suddenly sell out, leaving tenants to fend for themselves with new owners who are usually anonymous LLC corporations that arrive with rent increases, bulldozers with a mandate to move-or-be-smashed, or a new team of workplace bullies they refer to as managers.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mobile27-2009jul27,0,2043044.story

“At-will” labor law needs to be reconsidered in light of Workplace Bullying

Employment law in the U.S. has traditionally been governed by the common law rule of "at-will employment," meaning that an employment relationship could be terminated by either party at any time for any reason or without a reason. This is still true today in most states. However, starting in 1941, a series of laws prohibited certain discriminatory firings. That is, in most states, absent an express contractual provision to the contrary, an employer can still fire an employee for no or any reason, as long as it isn't an illegal reason (which includes a violation of public policy). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_labor_law and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
“While most people in the USA do not seem to care about practices in other countries, several law review articles have noted that the USA is alone among the industrialized nations of the world in providing no protection against wrongful termination of employment.” http://www.justlawlinks.com/PRACTICE/ctlabor.htm
Take heed. High level CEO’s and public managers (school superintendents, fire chiefs, city managers, top hospital administrators, etc.) have tightly-written contracts that either abolish “at-will” common law for their particular employment, and pay high stock dividends or “buy-outs” when the employer wants to release that person prior to the contracts duration language.
Also lament, the United States is the only industrialized country that has no mandatory sick leave (even with Swine flu upon us), no mandatory vacation law, and the longest work week and shortest average vacation times taken of the industrialized world. Yet, we claim to be “the best country in the world to live in.” Love it or change it. California Healthy Workplace Advocates vote for change.

Workplace Bullying Chronic in Macedonia...

Business Week offers article about Macedonian work abuse
The problems permeating Macedonia’s issues with workplace bullying and inadequate laws to protect targets read the same as every state in our Union. To exacerbate our problems, most of the United States adheres to fire “at-will" policies, and status-blind workplace bullying is still legal.

Unions only represent 12% of our workforce in the USA and that number is shrinking. Sometimes, unions actually contribute to the bullying. Almost always, unions look the other way because they have no contract language to act upon. Unions are caught in the middle. Fortunately, the sharper unions lend us their support for the Healthy Workplace Bill.

See the Business Week article here:
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/aug2009/gb20090812_707411.htm#readerComments

Help reach the goal of 8000 for a petition against workplace bullying

In case you have not yet signed the Causes2Care petition to legislate against workplace bullying, here’s the site. Please participate. California Healthy Workplace Advocates thank you.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/471007117?z00m=19784307

Workplace Bullying worsens with recession for 5 million Americans

Bullying at work worsens with recession for 5 million Americans

Many times targeted workers are asked, “Why don’t you just stand up to the bully?” or “Why don’t you just get another job?”

Targets answer:
“Because I fear retaliation! They will believe the bully, not me. She has the power. And there’s a recession going on. Jobs aren’t easy to come by. My blood pressure is so high, thanks to that bullying #*%+ that I couldn’t even pass the physical for a new job, should I find one. Nor would I qualify for private health insurance because my high blood pressure would be a dreaded pre-existing condition. Have you seen the price of buying my health insurance under COBRA? It would take over half of my unemployment, which I don’t get unless I am fired. And that bully knows it. This recession is why she’s taking so many runs at me. I know she enjoys the bullying. You should see the grin on her face whenever she gets a good one on me. It happens every other day.”

Genuine fears for real problems. This recession really is increasing the incidence of workplace bullying. Read this blog which contains the results from a recent poll taken by The Workplace Bullying Institute:

http://www.examiner.com/x-19539-Seattle-Workplace-Bullying-Examiner~y2009m8d11-Bullying-at-work-worsens-for-5-million-Americans Better yet, weigh in with your own experience: http://workdoctorsurveys.com/wbi080609/startsurvey.php

Workplace Bullying in Academics

Academic authors just can’t bring selves to use the “B” word – “Incivility,” they call it. Very, very nice. Their other publications say, ‘bad behavior’ and ‘rudeness.’ Adjectives in their citations are “insidious” and “counterproductive” to describe bullying workplace behaviors. Any word, except ‘bullying.’ Of what might they be afraid? Perhaps sounding like children who are quite honest?" http://www.thecostofbadbehavior.com/home.html

Workplace bullying law meets whistleblower protection law

Workplace bullying law meets whistleblower protection law in Britain – The “mother country” of Canada and the US (for that matter), has enjoyed national whistleblower protection law, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998: (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/ukpga_19980023_en_1) and workplace bullying law, the Protection from Harassment Act 1997: (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1997/ukpga_19970040_en_1 ) for over a decade.

Notice the words under the part pertaining to Scotland, “Every individual has a right to be free from harassment.” Take heed that one need not be a member of a “protected class” due to his race, color, ethnicity, sex, national origin, religion/sect, disability, or age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class). In other words, the Brits to do not confuse harassment and discrimination as the Americans do. What a concept!

Now, take a look at this short article from the UK about a whistleblower who wins the right to sue over alleged workplace bullying: http://www.rjw.co.uk/news-events/directnews/whistleblower-wins-right-to-sue-over-alleged-workplace-bullying_1805
After eating your little North American heart out, pull yourself together and visit this remarkably wonderful site for what California Healthy Workplace Advocates call “small-time whistleblowers” and just try to figure out what the heck is the connection between blowing the whistle and making false claims might be. No, it has nothing to do with “crying wolf.” It has to do with the False Claims Act against a government, called “qui tam statutes, that allow whistleblowers to actually step into the shoes of the government and seek damages on behalf of the government.” http://whistleblowerlaws.com/index.php

In other words, in the US, a small-time whistleblower can make like the government itself and vicariously sue an entity for making false charges for government moneys. But it better be about multi-millions of government dollars or you will NEVER find attorney representation.

Healthy Workplace Advocates tell this to legislators and even governors. We call our whistleblower protections “infantile” because they provide so little protection for the typical whistleblower. Those whistleblowers we read of or hear about in the media are big-timers – the very reason the media picked up their stories in the first place. The rest of us just pucker up and blow away.

Workplace Bullying - Equal Opportunity Bullies

Dr. Gary Namie appeared on YouTube; California Healthy Workplace Advocates missed it. In case you missed this news clip on YouTube, like we did until Google Alerts flagged it this month, check it out. KDRV TV in November of 2007 comes another news feature about the Zogby- WBI study.
The clip highlights a professional woman and two female colleagues whose higher-level job duties were stripped and replaced with make-work projects of a trivial nature. Removing responsibilities from a target is a common bullying tactic and especially egregious abuse to those who are educated for professional or paraprofessional duties.
You will hear how these women from New York State prevailed legally, most likely because they sued for gender-based discrimination, which is indeed illegal.Had their bully been another woman, they wouldn’t have had a legal leg to stand on.

But, should we succeed with a federal Healthy Workplace Bill, “Look out, you equal-opportunity bullies! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh_weiY-d6A

Workplace Bullying Rife in the Helping Professions

California is not the only place where workplace bullying is rife in the helping professions. Tampa Bay news writer really “gets it” – Here’s a story about a registered nurse who went through what Healthy Workplace Advocates hear from targets over and over and over again.

Written with compassion and understanding, this St. Petersburg Times staff writer relays this nurse’s story in such a way that even the hardest opponent of the Healthy Workplace Bill could not deny workplace bullying’s very existence and our present law’s inability to address it.

We should ask the story’s opponent if he would want his nurse to be subjected to similar cruelty while tending to his illness. We should ask any opponent if she can any longer deny the ‘elephant in the labor living room’ of the American workforce. Then, Healthy Workplace Advocates should contact this Times staff writer and thank her.

Rebecca Catalanello can be reached at rcatalanello@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3383.) She will tell this now-damaged nurse in Rebecca’s story that she is not alone and that Healthy Workplace Advocates not only believe her: We care about her plight. http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article1021546.ece

Please join us in our legislative lobbying mission to pass legislation to correct and prevent workplace bullying in California. Our next meeting is on Saturday, Sept. 26th, 2009 at Denny's Restaurant in downtown Sacramento. Go to www.bullyfreeworkplace.org for more information.

Aug. meeting of California Healthy Workplace Advocates

"Workplace Bullying: Repeated, health-harming mistreatment manifested as either verbal abuse; conduct which is threatening, humiliating, intimidating; or sabotage that interferes with work or some combination of the three." www.workplacebullying.org
As reported yesterday at the August meeting in Sacramento for California Healthy Workplace Advocates, Funding problems end British workplace bullying organization ended The Andrea Adams Trust in the UK.
On July 31, 2009 the first UK organization to combat Workplace Bullying — http://www.andreaadamstrust.org/live/home.html The Andrea Adams Trust exited from the public stage for lack of funding after 15 years of service. The Trust’s namesake, Adams, coined the phrase workplace bullying for the world. She (with Neil Crawford) wrote the first book on the topic in. Cancer claimed the pioneer. From The Workplace Bullying Institute which provides this support, education, and legislative campaign for Canada and the United States, CHWA is told, “We at US-based WBI salute and thank the British pioneers for their contributions, including the six years of Ban Bullying Days and crisis line support for targeted individuals. Lyn Witheridge, founder and chief executive of the trust said: ‘It is time for the Andrea Adams Trust to pass on the baton, and I urge other organizations who share our passion in the fight against workplace bullying to continue with our work. Recognition of the effects of bullying in the workplace is essential if it is to be legitimately challenged, which can only be achieved through persistent effort to raise awareness of this insidious practice. The Trust will be missed. The Adams-Leymann duo has now truly passed on." http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2009/08/04/51644/workplace-bullying-charity-andrea-adams-trust-closes.html

Workplace Bullying without a target...where do they go?

"I must write a response to a blog author who expressed the belief that if targets would speak up, workplace bullies would go away or change their behavior. That logic struck me like, "If no one is in the forest to hear the tree fall, would it make noise?" If targets stand up for themselves, do we have any real evidence bullies will go away or stop their behavior? This is not rudeness we are talking about. I say, go research the phenomenon of workplace bullying, then write about it.

Sadly, targets often get blamed for the behavior of their perpetrator. Bullies are self-contained. They do not need to be set off by anyone else's behavior, and seldom will they voluntarily stop their behavior simply because a target calls them on it. That is why it is so very important that companies put policies and procedures in place to correct and prevent workplace bullying, much like the law now requires they do in regard to sexual harrassment.

Although we don't yet have any laws in the United States to protect us from this life altering phenomenon, we are not going away. We will keep up our citizen lobbying until we achieve legal protection. I am sure there are some employers who are savvy enough to see that changes are coming. Many realize that productivity in the workplace is directly linked to maintaining a healthy environment, both mentally and physically.

So to those who want to believe that all it takes to stop this problem is to stand up for yourself, I respond by saying that I am standing up for myself by leaving the toxic environment that supports the bully and joining others in the campaign to pass legislation to compel employers to confront the bullies, call them on their behavior, and demand that they change or be held liable if they do not!"

Thank you to the member of the California Healthy Workplace Advocates who contributed this entry. We are part of a HUGE network of states, workers, and professionals who are working toward legislation to correct and prevent workplace bullying. Please join us.

Work Shouldn't Hurt - Workplace Bullying Does!

"It is Sunday evening and you wonder where the weekend went. The thought of going to work is making you feel sick to your stomach. You are calling in sick more often and dreading to go into work on Monday morning. For me, I would wake up in the morning and vomit or have hard dry heaves that left my stomach feeling turned inside out. One morning I experienced chest pains severe enough that I went to the emergency room. Though medical tests revealed that I wasn't having a heart attack, the ER doctor advised me to see a cardiologist.

Is your blood pressure too high? Are you experiencing headaches, stomach aches and/or bouts of diarrhea? Grinding your teeth at night? Or maybe you just can't sleep as you lay awake replaying an incident at work over and over in your mind? Do you feel exhausted and depressed from the oppressive atmosphere at work and the way you are being treated? You may be experiencing workplace bullying, a highly toxic experience that can tear your entire life apart.

At work you may notice your manager or even co-workers may be treating you differently than other workers. Someone may be watching when you arrive at work, how long you take breaks and what time you leave work. You may find you are given more and more work to do and what seems like impossible deadlines. Or you may find that the work projects that normally came your way are being passed on to someone else. You notice your co-workers going to meetings that you aren't told about. When you ask for the same training opportunities offered to others in the office, you are denied; the information necessary to do your job is withheld.

You may discover that someone else is taking credit for the work you did. No matter how hard you work, and you know you are doing the best job possible, you are told, either directly or indirectly, that it is not good enough...implying YOU are not good enough! You may find you are being reprimanded for incidental things that your coworkers do every day. You are afraid to speak up and say anything in fear you may be written up for insubordination or you may be accused of not being a team player.

Your supervisor may be in your face, yelling at your while others at work are being told not to talk to you. There are rules that apply to you but not to others in your office. You find that everything you do or say is being scrutinized. You feel isolated and alone as your career takes a dive. When you complain to management the situation worsens. You ask for a transfer and the transfer is denied. WORK SHOULDN'T HURT!"

California Healthy Workplace Advocates would like to thank the member who wrote this biography of experiences. If any of this is happening to you, please join our grass roots movement to pass a law to correct and prevent workplace bullying! Thankyou

Workplace Bullying- Arnold slipped this one in...

BUDGET CONTAINING OFFSHORE DRILLING LANGUAGE GOT PAST US...

California Governor Arnold slipped this one over on us. Because fur was flying during the budget process, few noticed that off-shore drilling would be used to drum up the money needed to balance our goofed up political system. Would this kind of politics be considered a form or workplace bullying?

Wonder if Arnold has ever read Faust? He’s selling state cars with his signature on them. Wonder if he will sign his soul when he sells that too? Or maybe he already has.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/20/ED2M18S3UU.DTL

Dealing with Workplace Bullying is passed to the next generation...

As quoted by Associated Press writer, Philip Elliot, on news.yahoo.com yesterday, "WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama is telling the nation's oldest civil rights organization that government, families, and neighborhoods must work together to improve communities."

Did you know that on July, 2008, the NAACP National Convention proposed a resolution that (#15 Workplace Bullying) Resolved: That NAACP Units at all levels will seek legislation at all appropriate levels to deem workplace bullying illegal."? The resolution was adopted (see bullyfreeworkplace.org under News Articles 2006-2008 to read the entire article). THANK YOU!

What legacy are we leaving our future generations if we continue to take NO ACTION to correct and prevent bullying in the workplace? We are doing the same thing we are objecting to in corporate America. We are colluding with the bullies! I am referring to the collective "We" since many of us are working diligently to get the Healthy Workplace Bill passed into law.

Once again, I am going to post a paragraph submitted to California Healthy Workplace Advocates by email today. This comes in from a member of the 30 something generation:

"My experience with working for a corporation is that a law has to be put into place in order for the business to adhere to providing a fair work environment. There will always be bullies; it's human nature. But bullying in the workplace is unfair and can only be controlled if a business fears legal and/or financial consequences of the behavior elicited by the bully. I generally see a lot of reactive behavior in lieu of proactive awareness. Labor laws eliminate that choice and encourage organizations to follow the laws."

THANK YOU for this submission, this objective and insightful paragraph, and permission to publish it! California Healthy Workplace Advocates next meeting is this coming Saturday, July 25th in Sacramento (see website for time and location). Please join our grassroots movement in our mission to pass a law to correct and prevent workplace bullying!

Submitted today by a target for your review...

"I have been targeted by my supervisors. My story is a painful one, as I imagine, are yours. I have been forced to defend myself by going intermittendly to my union representative, who has been a blessing. I have also resolved to educate myself, which I am doing behind closed doors. Any knowledge I accumulate, whether about correctional healthcare or about management in general, or about bullies co-existing with them, serves to make the bullies around me more insecure. My every move infuriates her.

I personally/professionally feel that workplace bullying has a trickle down effect. Frustration, depression, anger, resentment, etc. experienced by parents in the workplace is witnessed by children and re-enacted in a painful cycle on the schoolyard playground. History repeats itself. I am concerned that the increase in child suicide is linked to workplace bullying, and schoolyard bullying, and hatecrimes.

...I am deeply committed to doing whatever else I can to help. I am a passionate and hard worker. When I set my mind to do something it gets done. Count on it."

Thank you to this courageous person for permission to use this submission. California Healthy Workplace Advocates is committed to preserving the anonymity of our members, i.e., "The names have been changed to protect the innocent", just like the old TV show, Dragnet. Please join us in promoting legislation to help establish a bully-free environment at work for ALL of us by passing a law to correct and prevent bullying in the workplace.

Whose responsibility is workplace bullying?

I'm still processing the broadcast on yesterday's TODAY show on NBC, available to see at
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/#31904004

Whose responsibility is it to provide a safe and healthy workplace? The employer

Whose responsibility is it to reign in the bully's behavior? The bully

Who are often people targeted for workplace bullying? The brightest and the best

Why are they targeted? Their competence and accomplishment present a threat to the bully

WE DO NOT DO ANYTHING WRONG TO INVITE WORKPLACE BULLYING!

Yes, I've read and heard, "You should not disagree with management", or, "Don't rock the boat". But who would have dreamed that expressing ideas, questioning the way things are done, or just being good at what you do would invite workplace bullying?

One of the best quotes I ever heard was from John Bradshaw, author of Healing the Shame that Binds You. To quote as I recall, he said, "Unquestionable authority stopped at the Nuramberg Trials". Does anyone remember all those who tried to evade responsiblity for their actions by saying they just followed orders? Need I say more??

Please join our grassroots movement to promote legislation into law to correct and prevent workplace bullying. Go to http://www.bullyfreeworkplace.org/ to learn more.

Review of TODAY Show on Workplace Bullying

NBC's TODAY SHOW once again exposed the problem of workplace bullying on Tuesday, July 14, 2009, successfully featuring Colleen Robinson, a coordinator of the Illinois Healthy Workplace Advocates. Not since May 23, 2005, has TODAY acknowledged the Workplace Bullying Institute as the nation's leading source of research on work abuse. The announcer said that 1 in every 8 workers was targeted by workplace bullying. Oddly, the study quoted, the WBI-Zogby poll of 2007, tells us that 37%, or one in every 3+ workers are targeted in the US at sometime in their careers. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/31904004#31904004)

Unfortunately, TODAY's career expert offered naive advice for targets of workplace bullying. She suggested,
"You need to stand up for yourself." (you'll likely get fired because we do not yet have a law against status-blind work abuse.)

"Bullies go after the weak." (Only weak people get targeted? Targets are statistically INDEPENDENT, COMPETENT, SOCIALLY ADEPT, and ETHICAL WHISTLEBLOWERS.)

"It's about power." (Yea, that's why 72% of bullies are bosses!)

"They're going to go after someone else." (You may be traumatized by witnessing other's abuse.)

On this highest-rated television morning news and talk show, the topic of workplace bullying is covered once or twice a year. Because of the good work of WBI and Healthy Workplace Advocates, the tone used has become much more empathetic to our slowly-recognized problem of workplace bullying

In 2005, TODAY anchor, Matt Lauer, displayed a somewhat antagonistic attitude about the subject. He interviewed Dr. Gary Namie in the studio and seemed to question the very existence of workplace bullying with the typical attitude of denial given to an abuse long ignored by our society. Perhaps Lauer himself has been impacted by various controversies historically surrounding employees of TODAY, the third, longest running daytime TV program. (See Wikipedia" TODAY Show)

More likely, our culture is finally evolving and awakening to the issue of work abuse and it's high cost to our society. Thanks to the Workplace Bullying Institute's legislative campaign for the Healthy Workplace Bill, our words are out there: Workplace Bullying does indeed exist and does indeed destroy lives at an enormous cost to our communities. THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW!
Join our grassroots movement at www.bullyfreeworkplace.org

See Workplace Bullying on TODAY SHOW 8am Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Special alert! The NBC morning TODAY SHOW is to air a special segment on Workplace Bullying with Collene Robinson, an Illinois Healthy Workplace Advocate on Tuesday, July 14th at 8am. Don't miss this opportunity to learn more about this incidious phenomenon, a national disgrace that continues to run rampant through all levels of business.

Join our grassroots movement to pass legislation to correct and prevent workplace bullying! Contact us directly at www.bullyfreeworkplace.org to learn more.

Office Jerks or Workplace Bullies entrenched on Wall Street?

The Wall Street Journal recently publish a snarky expose' about an extreme form of abusive behavior permeating our present work culture, destroying individuals, traumatizing entire workforces. "The Fall of The Workplace Jerk" (July 2, 2009) suggests this wonderful recession will flush these evil doers or "jerks" out the door. Nothing could be further from probability.

Those of us who advocate for targets of workplace bullies know well of lost careers, nervous breakdowns, suicides, bankruptcies, and destroyed lives caused by bullies, often psychopaths, who often rise to the top. We Americans and present law fail to recognize or correct work abuse. We need to grow, now more than ever.

The trivializing term "jerk" is defined by Microsoft's dictionary as "somebody who is regarded as behaving foolishly." A "workplace bully" is defined by the Workplace Bullying Institute as a person who commits "repeated mistreatment in the form of verbal abuse; threatening, humiliating, and intimidating conduct; sabatoge which interferes with work; or some combination of the three." Would the Wall Street Journal publish satire about child abuse, spousal abuse, or animal abuse? Perhaps WSJ editors still regard, "Pow, Alice! Right in the kisser!" as a humorous punch line. Most of the rest of us have grown up and do not.

Wall Street is rightfully blamed for having pushed and shoved 5% or more of American workers right out of their jobs. It's of little wonder that the business rag Wall Street worships would make light of the workplace bullying plight of the little people. What is the tally of mortgage borrowers who were bullied into buying houses they could ill afford or into subprime mortgages when they qualified for prime? This abuse hurt our country and the global community immeasurably. Perhaps the Wall Street Journal might publish a snarky article about the abuse of borrowers by lenders and their bullying agents? Abuse comes in many forms. At least a few of us have brought workplace bullying into the light of day.

We bullied workers are "mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore." Remember that punch line? How ironic. It was spoken by a character portraying a news man.

Workplace Bullying, a Social Problem Too Serious to Ignore

A safe and healthy workplace environment is under an employers control. When companies do nothing about workplace bullying, what are they really doing? According to Dr. Gary Namie, co-author of The Bully at Work, "Doing nothing is NOT a neutral act." Have you ever thought about it that way before? If employers do NOTHING when workplace bullying is reported, they collude with the bully, giving their silent approval.

Our efforts to promote the Healthy Workplace Bill into law is for one primary purpose, to apply a solution to this actual social problem. The business community continues to demonstrate that they are NOT willing to voluntarily put policies and procedures in place to correct and prevent the harmful phenomenon of workplace bullying, that is why we need a law to compel them to do so, to protect us all.

Our citizen lobbyist groups continue to show employers, legislators, and Chamber of Commerces' the high cost of bullying to companies, targets, taxpayers, health care providers, workers compensation (insurance companies), etc. (more examples listed at www.bullyfreeworkplace.org) yet they continue to dismiss or disregard the evidence. Another "Do Nothing" act.

We must act. We must insist that our legislators listen to us, take us seriously, and understand that workplace bullies are too expensive to ignore. Please join our grassroots movement to pass legislation to correct and prevent workplace bullying!

"We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization." Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Workplace Bullying, Health Care Consequences

The consequences of workplace bullying often include health care issues. Many who lose their jobs are left with little or no health care coverage, some even bullied off the job because of their health or a family member's health issues.

After watching Bill Moyers Journal on PBS last night, I am amazed at how much money insurance companies are making from keeping the insured with claims OFF their roles so they meet "Wall Street expectations". If you didn't get a chance to view it, go to pbs.org and watch the show for yourself. An amazing awakening in the making!

So, how does this apply to us? We are physically being injured by workplace bullies. Remember the definition by Drs. Namie book, The Bully at Work? "Repeated health harming treatment". Do we think any industry that is making money off our misery is going to "voluntarily" going to change? NO...that is why the Healthy Workplace legislation is so important. Legally requiring businesses to put policies and procedures in place that will "correct and prevent workplace bullying" is the only way to go.

Check out this quote from Dantes, taken directly off Bill Moyers PBS interview on the website:
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, maintain a neutrality." Please join us in our mission to promote legislation to correct and prevent workplace bullying!

California Healthy Workplace Advocates

If we had enforceable policies and procedures in the workplace to correct and prevent workplace bullying, wouldn't it make the workplace much safer and healthier for everyone, everyone from the top down? Did you know workplace bullying is currently legal unless a person falls into a protected status from the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Isn't it TIME we do something to protect the rest of us?

Who remembers what many people had to endure before there were legislative policies required in the workplace to correct and prevent sexual harrassment? How can we create the same process to protect workers, management, and even company owners from workplace bullying? We are all subject to the dangerous possibility of workplace bullying...no one is exempt.

First, let's define what we are talking about. Workplace bullying is something that can be perpetuated as "bullying up", "bullying down", or "bullying across", meaning anyone can become a target of workplace bullying. Repeated health harming treatment is a good way to describe the action and consequences of this phenomenon.

According to the professional WBI/Zogby Poll conducted in 2007, 37% of California workers are on the receiving end of workplace bullying...that is a whopping 5,602,429 California workers!! Another 12% of people have witnessed someone being bullied in the workplace, noting this phenomenon affects 7,419,433 people in California. These numbers are not made up out of thin air...they are REAL, and must be addressed publically to pressure lawmakers to do something to protect us!!

The book, The Bully at Work by Dr.s Ruth and Gary Namie, clearly tells us that naming the problem is where our recovery from this disaster begins. Look, if bullying is being recognized on school grounds as a problem, a very SERIOUS problem, why don't people make the obvious jump to realize these people grow up and take the very same behaviors with them to the workplace?! Also, if the behavior is ignored, it obviously escalates and gets worse.

There is a Healthy Workplace Bill being circulated to legislators in 26 states right now, including California. We know the current administration does not support this legislation (look who is at the helm...The Terminator!), but soon we will have different leadership, and hopefully they will believe in human rights, the right to be safe and healthy in our workplaces. We have a lot of work to do to get this legislation to "Correct and Prevent Workplace Bulling" passed into law.

If you believe this is as serious a problem as we do, join us at www.bullyfreeworkplace.org, join this BLOG, and support our mission to get legislation passed to make social change for the good of us all. Thanks, more to share in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.