City could revive anti-bullying bill for the workplace
Two years ago, the Providence City Council introduced an ordinance to ban bullying at workplaces citywide, yet the proposed legislation has been dormant ever since.
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Then two weeks ago, a pair of “workplace bullying” experts visited City Hall to speak on the topic, and in the process may have revived the city’s bill.
Wife and husband Ruth and Gary Namie, psychologists who live in Washington, presented their national research on workplace bullying Oct. 14 to a room full of city employees, city councilors, local union leaders and members of the media (which included a crew from NBC’s “Dateline,” which plans to air a report on this issue on an unknown date).
Council President Pro Tempore Balbina A. Young, in an interview, said she learned of the bullying experts following “talk years ago that (workplace bullying) might be happening in city government.”
After speaking with her about the city’s concerns two years ago, Young said, the bullying experts sent her model legislation drafted for the California state Legislature (which has not adopted the bill).
Young said in October 2003 she submitted the model legislation to the council, which agreed to forward it to its Committee on Ordinances for further review. The committee, consisting of five councilors including Young, had not considered the bill since.
However, city councilors were ready to revisit the proposed anti-bullying law after the pair of psychologists explained why they believe every city, state and country should have one.
Ruth Namie knows the dangers of workplace bullying all too well. When she took a new job at a substance abuse clinic in 1995, the addiction specialist was confident in her skills. But her new boss soon had her second-guessing her abilities, she said.
“To run into someone who said I couldn’t do anything right was an incredible experience,” Namie said in an interview.
“I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I had migraine headaches that I never had before,” she added.
At first she kept quiet about her workplace trauma at home, humiliated by her bosses’ criticism and wanting to avoid worrying her husband. But it all came to a head when she confronted her supervisor after the woman chastised her in front of colleagues.
“I said, ‘You will never talk to me like that again,’” Namie recalled of the incident. Within a month, the supervisor put her on administrative leave. Six months later, she was fired.
Workplace bullying became a full-time job for the Namies in 1997. They co-authored a book on the topic called “The Bully at Work,” which was published in 2000. They have served as consultants on workplace bullying and speak to organizations nationwide.
What is workplace bullying? The Namies provided the following definition: “repeated, health-impairing mistreatment, driven by perpetrators’ need to control (their) target.”
“We’re talking about repeated mistreatment to the extent that someone gets sick from it,” Gary Namie added.
Namie used Bobby Knight, former Indiana University men’s basketball coach and current coach at Texas Tech, as an example of a workplace bully. Knight won three national championships while coaching at IU, but was notorious for his violent outbursts on and off the court.
“(Knight) is a molder of men who tormented other people,” Namie said, adding that bullying in U.S. organizations is often overlooked if the person “gets the job done.”
He noted that one in six workers falls prey to bullying. In fact, 71 percent of those defined as bullies are bosses of their targets. Women are the most likely perpetrators, accounting for 58 percent of all workplace bullying.
“These are people who are willing to manipulate and exploit in order to get their personal agendas done,” he added.
Workplace bullying is also hazardous to targets’ health, causing multiple medical conditions – compromised immune system, gastrointestinal disorder, hypertension, psoriasis, chronic fatigue, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Namies’ research indicates that workplace bullying costs employers in the form of high turnover rates, absenteeism, disability, litigation and accidents by tired workers.
Despite the perils of workplace bullying, Namie said, the U.S. is the only industrialized country that has not addressed the problem. At the state level, bills have been introduced but have yet to pass in Oklahoma, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and California.
Namie said the states haven’t passed the laws because legislators don’t want to take away managements’ authority over workers.
“We need the laws and we need the ordinances,” he said, “because we can’t count on human nature to get it done.”
Providence, he said, could serve as a national model if the city adopted such a law.
City Council President John J. Lombardi said he and other councilors are committed to adopting a citywide law to make workplace bullying illegal. He noted that, before the council can vote on the proposed law, the Committee on Ordinances must hold public hearings on it.
Yvonne Graf, a spokeswoman for the City Council, said councilors have only the model legislation from California, and haven’t yet tailored the legislation to comply with local and state labor laws.
In its current form, the ordinance would make it unlawful to subject employees to an “abusive” work environment. It also would prohibit employers from retaliating against an employee for reporting a bullying situation, according to the California legislation.
Young said she plans to address the anti-bullying proposal at the ordinance committee’s next meeting later this month or in early-November.
“Let’s finish what we started,” she said.
