Bullying at Work Latest Top Legal Issue

September 4th, 2012. By AbiK

LawyersandSettlements.com recently published our top 10 lawyer interviews for the month of May, 2012—based on your clicks. What was interesting was that the interview Jane Mundy had done with California employee attorney Donna M. Ballman, P.A. on workplace bullying and harassment on the job was the number one interview for the month.

Just as bullying in the schoolyard—and all forms of bullying such as that which we learned about in the national media after Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi took his own life—have become the focal point for new legislation and tougher penalties, bullying at work has become a hot legal issue.

Just last month, HRMorning published an article highlighting the top legal issues HR pros need to be mindful of for the remainder of 2012. Number 2 on the list? Workplace harassment.

The Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI)—you know an issue has hit a groundswell when there’s an organization dedicated to it—states that 35% of US workers have reported that they’ve been bullied at work. Of note, WBI informs that that’s about the equivalent of the combined populations of Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah.

The organization also defines bullying on the job as the following:

“Workplace Bullying is repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators that takes one or more of the following forms: verbal abuse; offensive conduct/behaviors (including nonverbal) which are threatening, humiliating, or intimidating; and work interference—sabotage—which prevents work from getting done.”

While a definition of workplace bullying provides a guide of bullying tactics, for employees and managers, being aware of signs that might indicate an escalating situation—including workplace violence—is just as important. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (opm.gov) shares the following as signs of workplace violence to be on the lookout for—the signs were identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, Profiling and Behavioral Assessment Unit:

• Direct or veiled threats of harm;
• Intimidating, belligerent, harassing, bullying, or other inappropriate and aggressive behavior;
• Numerous conflicts with supervisors and other employees;
• Bringing a weapon to the workplace, brandishing a weapon in the workplace, making inappropriate references to guns, or fascination with weapons;
• Statements showing fascination with incidents of workplace violence, statements indicating approval of the use of violence to resolve a problem, or statements indicating identification with perpetrators of workplace homicides;
• Statements indicating desperation (over family, financial, and other personal problems) to the point of contemplating suicide;
• Drug/alcohol abuse; and
• Extreme changes in behaviors;

 

Tags: Attorney Donna Ballman, Discrimination, Employment, Jane Mundy, Job Harassment, Workplace Bullying, Workplace Bullying Institute, Workplace Harassment

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