In recent years, the existence of a significant problem in workplaces has been documented in Sweden and other countries. It involves employees "ganging up" on a target employee and subjecting him or her to psychological harassment. This "mobbing" behavior results in severe psychological and occupational consequences for the victim...
This phenomena has been called "mobbing," "ganging up on someone" or psychic terror. It occurs as schisms, where the victim is subjected to a systematic stigmatizing through, inter alia, injustices (encroachment of a person's rights), which after a few years can mean that the person in question is unable to find employment in his/her specific trade. Those responsible for this tragic destiny can either be workmates or management...
Psychical terror or mobbing in working life means hostile and unethical communication which is directed in a systematic way by one or a number of persons mainly toward one individual. There are also cases where such mobbing is mutual until one of the participants becomes the underdog. These actions take place often (almost every day) and over a long period (at least for six months) and, because of this frequency and duration, result in considerable psychic, psychosomatic and social misery. This definition eliminates temporary conflicts and focuses on the transition zone where the psychosocial situation starts to result in psychiatric and/or psychosomatic pathological states...
It seems to be a general clinical experience among physicians working in occupational health departments that immediate and grave psychosomatic effects can be observed. I have located the number of suicides having this background as being between 100 and 300; this means that about 10% -15% of the total number of suicides in Sweden each year have this type of background...
My experience, gained from insight into a large number of conflicts, is that legal matters are not usually a hindrance. Often the weaker party, the one threatened with expulsion, wants some sort of honorable rehabilitation or an assurance that s/he was not solely the guilty party in the conflict. It is puzzling that we have never found a single case where the employer, as the other party, could find himself at fault and give the employee some redress for wrongs suffered. Usually, in cases where the conflict has gotten completely out of hand, the employer representative demands some form of .total capitulation to his demands. As I have said, my experience inclines me to think that this kind of experienced violation is the factor which drives the situation to its climax...
From: Heinz Leymann, “Mobbing and Psychological Terror at Workplaces,” Violence and Victims 5 (1990), 119-126, available at: http://www.mobbingportal.com/leymannmain.html
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Ban Bullying at Work Day: not a good day for bullies
07 Nov 2009
Now in its sixth year, Ban Bullying At Work Day, expects over 1 million people to take part in the minute of reflection to be held at 10 am on 7th November 2009.
Workplace bullying can be defined as the expression of aggression without physical violence - a form of psychological intimidation that makes its impact through persistent behaviours. There are many misconceptions about workplace bullying, a common one being that those individuals usually targeted are weak, ineffectual poor workers. The opposite is true and it is often the strong, confident and competent people who are often targeted.
Many of Britain's leading businesses already recognise that bullying is too costly to ignore. Click here to see a list of companies who are supporting us and taking part in Ban Bullying At Work Day.
"It is an unfortunate but hard fact that psychological bullying will always be a distressing part of workplace life but that does not mean it should be tolerated - either by those being bullied or by their management." - Bruce Haines, Group Chief Executive, Leo Burnett
Bullying in the workplace is not as obvious as you may think - there is a fine line between a strong work style and bullying behaviour which can make an individual feel demeaned and inadequate.
The key objective for Ban Bullying at Work Day and its run up campaign is to raise awareness of the issue across the UK.
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Beware bullies - they're coming to get you
''Oh NO'' screamed the bullies as they jumped onto their very big chairs behind their very big desks... ''don't bully US'' they pleaded...
''We're not going to bully you''... ''we're just going to explain to you how to behave properly''
''Oh NO'' shouted the bullies as they swung round in their very big chairs... ''We like to bully''
And the people who had come to get the bullies...
Said ''OK''
and walked away...
...forgetting Carl and all the other targets of the bullies
Bullying can KILL
Say no to bullying.
You know it makes sense
Don't walk away
Aphra Behn
I was a professor of sociology at Harrisburg Area Community College in Lancaster Pennsylvania. I am a victim of academic mobbing. After working a year and a half in a hostile enviroment I filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, and the EEOC. The complaints are PHRC Case No.200800802 and EEOC No. 17F200960329. I didn't realize what it was called until a forsenic psychologist spoke to me, and evaluated me in Delaware. A doctor in Lancaster for some strange reason wouldn't acknowledge it happened. However during the harassment I knew something was going on. The faculty were saying things like: I was a time-bomb, on drugs, aggressive, and unstable. Nothing could have been further from the truth, but the playing off the fact I was ex-military with three honorable discharges. There were two female faculty members, that were even truning students against me, and the dean, who was a relative of one of those faculty members, even allowed the students to harass me. When I filed the complaint I just knew I was being harassed. And only now after two years have I put it all together and realized the harassment was academic mobbing. When I filed a 60 counts/charges complaint I was then terminated after three full-time years at the college. Actually my complaint should have numbered 100to200 counts/charges of harassment against me. I was teaching all the advanced sociology courses, and getting good evaluations, students seemed to like me, but once I filed the complaint of harassment I was released. When the finding came back from the complaints to the PAHRC and EEOC they were filled with lies from people I didn't even know. Once i was released from harrisburg area community college in Lancaster, the harassment spread into the community of Lancaster, and became organized cause stalking. It ended up with me being set up and thrown in jail. At 5x the normal bail. When the police showed up they were saying I was dangerous, and telling my neighbors, people i associated with, and so called friends I was a dangerous suspect. And without even having a trial I was posted all over the internet and blacklisted by one man in Lancaster. This one man placed me on the internet 12x. He had ties to the school I taught at in Lancaster. This is a true story. I was arrested a month prior to the finding being released by the state, And when I got the police reports back the finding and police reports looked strikingly similar. I feel I have one of the most documented cases of academic mobbing in the history of the United states. For some reason, through it all, I kept methodical diaries on all the times and the poeple involved, and everything they said. I kept all the paper work too. As Goffman eplained life is like a threater, and it almost seemed as though I was in my own movie when all this crazyness was happening. It was amazing, and the doctors and counselors all ruled me normal,smart, but depressed. True story!! They do it for pleasure and sport. They don't stop until they have eliminated you by sending you to a mental institution, commit suicide, incarcerate you, or kill you...This is the God truth...
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