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