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Show solidarity with this blog and our work by making a small contribution in the form of short stories, brief postings, messages of support or any other info that relates to workplace bullying in academia. It all helps.

Access to personal data - UK

A good place to look is at the legislation itself, in this case here:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/19980029.htm

That way you don't get a filtered version of the facts.

Part II covers rights of access and procedures. If the data is sensitive and its disclosure to you might damage or distress a person, the data controller can refuse to give you documents under the "non disclosure provisions", which appear in several sections.

If you are in the process of establishing and/or proposing to defend your legal rights, considering a tribunal claim, wanting to seek legal advice etc, the data controller is NOT permitted to prevent access to the documents you need to see in connection with that – section 35.

(2): "Personal data are exempt from the non-disclosure provisions where the disclosure is required by or under any enactment, by any rule of law or by the order of a court.

(2) Personal data are exempt from the non-disclosure provisions where the disclosure is necessary—

(a) for the purpose of, or in connection with, any legal proceedings (including prospective legal proceedings) , or

(b) for the purpose of obtaining legal advice, or is otherwise necessary for the purposes of establishing, exercising or defending legal rights."

Making the star chamber work

...So that this book may be of maximum practical value, this chapter sets forth in point form some helpful hints for the professors, secretaries, and students who sit on harassment tribunals...

These tips are for the modal situation, where the tribunal needs to bring down a finding of Dr. PITA's guilt and a recommendation for punishment. Cases where Dr. PITA herself appeals to the tribunal are easier to deal with, usually by finding a plausible way to rule her complaint out of jurisdiction...

1. The tribunal should extend its jurisdiction or catchment area however broadly is required to take up the complaint against Dr. PITA - whether the incident occurred on campus or off, in his professional role or outside it.

2. Ideally, Dr. PITA should be found guilty of something before he finds out what it is...

3. To enlist Dr. PITA's cooperation in his own undoing, confound the roles of counsellor, prosecutor, and judge. In conversations with an official he believes is being friendly, he may make incriminating statements that can later be used against him...

5. Reward accusers...

8. Ignore Dr. PITA's lawyer, if he has one, and forbid the lawyer's presence at the hearing. Explain that domestic tribunals of a university proceed by norms of collegiality, and that legalistic, adversarial measures are out of the place.

9. If the faculty association or other bodies attempt to intervene on Dr. PITA's behalf, accuse them of trying to exert undue influence...

10. Ignore claims that the tribunal is biased against him. Respond as one chair did: "I am satisfied that this committee member has no apprehension of bias."

11. Disregard evidence in Dr. PITA's favour on substantive grounds...

12. Disregard evidence in Dr. PITA's favour on procedural grounds...

13. If there is evidence that Dr. PITA has discussed the case outside the tribunal (he may admit, for instance, having talked about it to his wife...), charge him with breach of confidentiality...

16. Ignore the references to context that Dr. PITA is almost sure to make...

18. Try to provoke Dr. PITA into losing his temper or doing something rash, then make appropriate additional charges...

19. In the report at the end, find Dr. PITA guilty of something, even if it is not what he was initially charged with...

23. The report should include innuendo so damaging to Dr. PITA that he will not himself release it publicly, however strong his objections...

24. Do not release the report publicly, lest the tribunal be revealed as a kangaroo court...

From: "Eliminating Professors. A Guide to the Dismissal Process", by Kenneth Westhues, published by Kempner Collegium, 1998.

Can we expect the University & College Union to do the same? Why not?

Unite, Britain's biggest union will today launch an 'anti-bullying hot mail' for staff working in the not-for-profit sector.

The union has set up a dedicated e-mail address BanBullying@Unitetheunion.com where victims or witnesses of bullying can contact the union to report instances of bullying in the workplace. The union will investigate the claims and act where necessary.

Bullying has been identified as the major issue facing staff in the voluntary sector, where union representatives report having to deal with bullying related cases more than any other issue.

Unite the union has launched a major campaign today (Wednesday 10th October) to combat bullying in the UK's not-for-profit sector. This week over 2,000 Unite representatives will receive campaign materials and advice on how to challenge the bullying culture.

The campaign is part of Unite's Dignity at Work project that advocates a zero tolerance approach to workplace bullying and promotes positive behaviour.

Unite believes that the reasons that bullying is exacerbated in the not-for-profit sector is due to lack of training for managers, coupled with the increasing pressures that workers are put under in the sector, as more is expected from staff for less.

Rachael Maskell, Unite national secretary for not-for-profit said: "It is unacceptable that people who choose a career helping others should fall prey to bullying. Our representatives in the not-for-profit sector are having to deal with cases of bullying more than any other issue.

We have set up a 'hot mail' to let staff know that they are not alone and that the union will act where necessary. Unite takes a zero tolerance approach to bullying in the work place.

We want to provide advice and support for both management and union representatives on how they can work together to create a climate of respect in the workplace and effectively deal with issues when they arise. Prevention is better than cure."

Unite will be surveying its members in November and attempt to identify the real scale of bullying.

"We hope that our research will show the true extent of bullying and prove to employers that the only way to effectively deal with bullying is to be proactive in raising awareness and promoting dignity at work. A trade union is best placed to help get this message out," added Rachael Maskell.

Union Representatives are being encouraged to organise events around Ban Bullying at Work day on November 7th to raise awareness.
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Can we expect the University & College Union (UCU) to do the same? Why not? In fact, is UCU organising anything at all for 7 November 2007 - Ban Bullying at Work Day?

Please contact UCU and ask what activities is our union organising for national anti bullying day on 7 November 2007.

Removal of Support for the Whistleblower

The effect of being falsely charged within an organisation is particularly stressful for the whistleblower for the following reasons:

• Dependence on the workplace for their own livelihood means potential supporters are much less likely to speak out and put themselves in a vulnerable position.
  
  
• Potential supporters might readily be bribed - their stand influenced by promises of overseas conference trips, promotions they have always wanted etc. Such messages are obvious to the recipient, to the whistleblower, and to those who are watching. Many people can fairly readily accept such bribes since they feel that their promotions and other opportunities are well deserved anyway. Not unexpectedly they take the line of least resistance. Those 'bribes' are a powerful way of influencing waverers - even if they are not recipients of the 'bribe'. They are subtle, since they are clear messages from management to staff, while at the same time being (fairly) readily explained away by management as being a normal part of the business if there is an inquiry.
  
  
• There is potential for the employer to encourage people who might be envious towards the whistleblower for some reason to speak out in particularly harsh terms, fabricate 'evidence', make up or embellish stories, etc.
  
  
• There is a tendency for a significant percentage of the workplace to strongly resent 'destabilisation' of the workplace and they focus their anger against the whistleblower rather than management since the whistleblower is a much easier target.
  
  
• The support mechanisms (human resource services for counselling, etc.) available within the workplace environment are not sufficiently independent of management. While such professionals might be highly trained in addressing workplace situations, much of that training focusses on assisting individuals to regain some kind of productive capacity, rather than confronting an incompetent or malicious management with a case of substantial victimisation or breach of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. In spite of it being their responsibility, the option of supporting a somewhat confused, highly stressed, perhaps fearful, relatively junior individual against a group of calm, lying, coherent, senior managers presiding over an intimidated workplace, can sometimes be just too difficult for human resources staff.
  
  
• Since it clearly 'marks' the whistleblower, and from that point on others in the workplace either avoid them or treat them differently.
  
  
• The whistleblower is often assigned to menial duties to ensure this lowerered status is well recognised by others, and to further stress the whistleblower. They might be asked to photocopy reports, or assigned to menial task of the activity which they questioned.
  
  
• Administrative staff who, by their nature, spend a large part of their life making sure that things run smoothly within an organisation can react strongly against whistleblowers who object to carrying out maliciously motivated instructions. There can also be personal value system differences between whistleblowers adopting a questioning attitude towards management while administrative staff may have a preference for regulation implementation.
  
  
• The whistleblower is likely to have considerable difficulty coming to terms with the fact that the organisation, for whom they have worked long and hard and in which they believe, is now setting out "to get them".

By Professor Brian Martin, from: http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/psychiatry.html

Bosses who cause problems are 'too expensive to keep,' expert says

Thanks to the Internet, employees with a difficult boss can vent to a wide audience, not just in undertones to the nearest person.

A Web site called eBossWatch.com, which launched this summer with the slogan "Nobody should have to work for a jerk," is one example of this phenomenon.

It, like blogged tirades and the AFL-CIO's annual My Bad Boss contest, hit on an important point: Bosses can't afford to be jerks, not when the economy is in a "war for talent" mode.

It might be fun to watch Donald Trump chew out hapless sycophants on The Apprentice, but most people don't want to work for someone like him.

"Bad bosses are too expensive to keep," said Gary Namie, president of Work Doctor Inc., of Bellingham, Wash., which advises businesses on how to prevent bullying. "They cost turnover, absenteeism, lawsuits, workers' comp claims and a tarnished reputation."

Wayne Hochwarter, a Florida State University business professor who has studied workplace dynamics extensively, has a theory on why there are so many bad managers: A lot of them were promoted because they were competent at their former job, say, selling cars, but don't have a clue how to manage other people doing the job.

And most of the training they receive on management – which isn't a lot because training budgets are shrinking everywhere – is futile. "They do not train them to effectively interact with people," Mr. Hochwarter said. "They train them to know who to call if Charlie slips in the warehouse and breaks his ankle."

From: http://www.dallasnews.com

Expired disciplinary actions...

'Expired disciplinary warning cannot be taken into account when considering the sanction for subsequent disciplinary offence.

Thomson was employed in a factory where raw chemicals are processed by way of chemical reactions to produce chemical compounds. The process is highly regulated and there is a constant risk of accidents in the form of explosions or leakage of chemicals. Therefore, all employees are required to follow Diosynth's safety, health and environmental rules of procedure (SHERPS). Thomson accepted that he was well aware of this, had been trained in, and understood the importance of, the process he was required to follow in relation to the role he performed.

In July 2000, Thomson was issued with a written warning and suspended without pay for three days for failing to follow a SHERPS rule which had resulted in a chemical leakage. Thomson assured his manager this was an isolated incident and he would always follow procedure in future. He was told that any failure to do so would result in disciplinary action. The written warning was to last for 12 months.

Fifteen months later, following an explosion in which an operator died, a thorough investigation was carried out into adherence to the SHERPS rules. It was discovered that 18 operators, including Thomson, had failed to follow the same SHERPS procedure that Thomson had previously failed to follow. All 18 operators were disciplined.

Thomson accepted that he had failed to follow the procedure on three specific occasions and had falsified the records to indicate that in fact he had done so. Thomson was dismissed summarily. Diosynth made it clear that without the previous warning, Thomson would not have been dismissed.

The tribunal decided that Diosynth was entitled to take the previous warning into account as part of the relevant history of events and that the dismissal was fair. However, the EAT and the Court of Session (the equivalent level of appeal in Scotland to the Court of Appeal in England & Wales) disagreed. The Court of Session found that Diosynth was not entitled to use the time-expired written warning as the basis for taking more serious disciplinary action than otherwise would have been taken. The dismissal was unfair.

Key points

• A warning which is allowed to remain on an employee's record indefinitely will not normally be consistent with good industrial relations practice.
• If an employer expresses a warning to be valid for a specified period of time, it is unfair to take that warning into account as a determining factor after the warning has expired. The Court of Session stated that the employer cannot complain if it is later unable to rely upon the expired warning.
• The Court of Session reiterated that the Acas Code of Practice should form the basis on which an employer's conduct is judged and should be used by tribunals as a guide to good industrial relations.

What you should do

• Handle expired disciplinary warnings with care. Do not rely on them as a key factor in tipping the balance between dismissal and a lesser disciplinary sanction.
• Give thought to the duration of any disciplinary warning at the time it is issued. Bear in mind that it will normally be necessary to fix an expiry date for the warning.'

From: http://www.personneltoday.com/

The monster in the mirror

...Although Freud published his study 'On Narcissism' in 1914, NPD wasn’t officially recognised as a personality disorder in the US until the 1980s... In the UK, there has been an ambivalent response to the apparent problem. Partly because, for a number of years, some psychiatrists questioned whether NPD and other personality disorders existed at all, while others believed they were simply untreatable. The change came in the 1990s, spurred by the government’s growing concern for the safety of the public after several attacks by people suffering from “severe and dangerous” personality disorders, and demands that they should be treated...

In Greek mythology, Narcissus, the handsome young Thespian, epitomises the concept of destructive self-love. According to the legend, Echo the nymph falls in love with Narcissus, but since she has been stripped of the ability to form her own words, she can only repeat what she hears. Narcissus, enamoured of his image reflected in a pool, addresses himself and says, “I love you,” repeated longingly by Echo. Narcissus, however, is too self-absorbed to see, hear or react. He eventually dies of languor, neglecting to eat or drink. Echo dies from a broken heart. In the myth, falling in love with one’s own image is seen as punishment for being incapable of loving another. In reality, NPD, at its most extreme, can lead to murder...

NPD appears to affect men more than women. A person with NPD is spectacularly lacking in curiosity or concern for others, but can easily simulate both if it ensures the continuation of what psychiatrists call “the narcissistic supply” of uncritical admiration and adulation.

In Narcissism: Denial of the True Self, first published in 1985, the American psychiatrist Dr Alexander Lowen refers to the case of Erich, brought to him by his girlfriend, Janice. Dr Lowen asks Erich about his feelings. “Feelings!” Erich replies. “I don’t have any feelings… I programme my behaviour so that it is effective in the world.”

...So, how do you know if a person has NPD? Mental-health professionals in Europe and the US draw on two sets of guidelines that are regularly updated by international groups of psychologists and psychiatrists to help make a diagnosis. The ICD-10, the World Health Organization’s classification of mental and behavioural disorders, published in 1992, lists nine categories of personality disorder, but does not include NPD.

In the US, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was first published by the American Psychiatric Association in 1952, in part to provide a benchmark for insurance companies handling medical claims. The fourth and current version (DSM-IV), published in 1994, lists 10 categories of personality disorder (see page 27) of which NPD is one. (DSM-V is due to be published in 2010.) DSM-IV also gives a list of nine characteristics, of which a person has to have at least five before NPD is considered.

The nine include a grandiose sense of self-importance; preoccupations with fantasies of success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love; a belief that he or she is “special”, only understood by other “special” people; a need for admiration; a sense of entitlement or unreasonable expectations of favourable treatment; exploitative, taking advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends; unwillingness to recognise or identify with the needs of others; envious of others, or thinks others are envious of him or her, and arrogance.

In its most extreme form, known as malignant narcissism, paranoia and physical aggression may also be displayed: Stalin, Hitler and Saddam Hussein come to mind. In the rich and successful, many of the characteristics of NPD are of course seen as positive attributes. In a 2005 study, the psychologists Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon at Surrey University found that three personality disorders, including NPD, were more common in managers than in criminals...

How narcissistic are you?

• If a person displays five or more of the following traits, they are likely to have narcissistic tendencies
• A grandiose sense of self-importance (eg, exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognised as superior without commensurate achievements)
• Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love
• Believes that he or she is ‘special’ and unique, and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
• Requires excessive admiration
• Has a sense of entitlement, ie, unreasonable expectations of especially favourable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
• Is interpersonally exploitative, ie, takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
• Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognise or identify with the feelings and needs of others
• Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
• Shows arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes
  

From: http://women.timesonline.co.uk
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The question to ask is: How many managers in Higher Education are simply narcissistic bastards?

The worst of slaves: Linking collective corruption with stress

...A feature of corruption is that it appears to cause no stress to its perpetrators, even though they are acting against themores of the wider society. One possible explanation is that many people comply with corruption as a mechanism for avoiding stressful conflict within their organisation...

...Sanctioning of corruption is likely to occur when corporate interests dominate three sets of conflicting value systems: that of the self, that of the corporation and that of the public. In situations when an individual’s values, in the context of society as a whole, are likely to be in conflict with the organisational ones, work will be carried out only under orders. These orders may be explicit or implicit, perhaps couched under ‘business necessity’. It can be accepted that in this situation, internal personal conflict could cause stress at an individual level, but it is not known if this would be a group phenomenon.

This form of sanctioning may appear to absolve staff lower down the organisational hierarchy of the responsibility to make personal moral choices, thereby removing a cause of stress. But it also implies a lack of control, which itself can cause stress. However, even with sanctioning, for corruption to take root, compliance is essential.

...Compliance to corruption may happen in unexpected ways. A series of experiments conducted at Yale University showed that normal, ordinary people are capable of inflicting severe pain on other human beings in following orders and doing their duty...

...Of all aspects of institutionalisation of corruption that may be linked with stress, the one that is most disturbing is that of creeping induction: The essence of the process involves causing individuals, under pressure, to take small steps along a continuum that ends with evildoing. Each step is so small as to be essentially continuous with previous ones; after each step, the individual is positioned to take the next one. The individual’s morality follows rather than leads. (Darley, 1992) The implication is that once a new employee becomes a member of a corrupt organisation, there is no going back. They will accept and carry out corrupt orders. The moral conviction and courage needed to go back is so stressful that individuals prefer to comply...

1. Collective corruption can cause individual stress
2. Many become compliant to collective corruption and in order to reduce stress
3. Compliance is associatedwith strong group identification, setting the stage for institutionalisation of corruption
4. High-identifiers may feel stressed when the group is threatened andmay complywith corrupt practices to cope with the stress
5. However, newcomers and others who do not identify strongly with the group may still feel stress in complying with corruption and become whistle blowers

First published in Stress News, the Journal of the International Stress Management Association [UK], Volume 17, Number 4 October 2005.

From: http://www.isma.org.uk/stressnews.htm

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

The serial bully displays behaviour congruent with many of the diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Characterised by a pervasive pattern of grandiosity and self-importance, need for admiration, and lack of empathy, people with narcissistic personality disorder overestimate their abilities and inflate their accomplishments, often appearing boastful and pretentious, whilst correspondingly underestimating and devaluing the achievements and accomplishments of others.

Often the narcissist will fraudulently claim to have qualifications or experience or affiliations or associations which they don't have or aren't entitled to. Belief in superiority, inflating their self-esteem to match that of senior or important people with whom they associate or identify, insisting on having the "top" professionals or being affiliated with the "best" institutions, but criticising the same people who disappoint them are also common features of narcissistic personality disorder.

Narcissists react angrily to criticism and when rejected, the narcissist will often denounce the profession which has rejected them (usually for lack of competence or misdeed) but simultaneously and paradoxically represent themselves as belonging to the profession they are vilifying.

Fragile self-esteem, a need for constant attention and admiration, fishing for compliments (often with great charm), an expectation of superior entitlement, expecting others to defer to them, and a lack of sensitivity especially when others do not react in the expected manner, are also hallmarks of the disorder. Greed, expecting to receive before and above the needs of others, overworking those around them, and forming romantic (sic) or sexual relationships for the purpose of advancing their purpose or career, abusing special privileges and squandering extra resources also feature.

People with narcissistic personality disorder also have difficulty recognizing the needs and feelings of others, and are dismissive, contemptuous and impatient when others share or discuss their concerns or problems. They are also oblivious to the hurtfulness of their behaviour or remarks, show an emotional coldness and a lack of reciprocal interest, exhibit envy (especially when others are accorded recognition), have an arrogant, disdainful and patronizing attitude, and are quick to blame and criticise others when their needs and expectations are not met.

From: http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/npd.htm