Tactics against bullying at work

...There's a lot written about bullying, especially about:

• how common it is (the answer: it's all too common);
• what happens to targets (the career, psychological and health effects can be devastating);
• what management should do (adopt policies and actions).

However, management can't be relied on to solve every problem. Furthermore, often management is the problem: favoured managers are the bullies.

From the point of view of an individual being bullied, the alternatives don't look good. If you put up with the abuse, it will probably continue. If you resist, it may get worse. Many advisers say the best option is to leave.

Is it possible to resist effectively? Sometimes it is, but you need skills and psychological toughness. And you need to know what tactics to use. That's what I tell about here: tactics...

Perpetrators typically use five methods to reduce popular outrage.

(1) Cover-up: the action is hidden. Torture is nearly always carried out in secrecy.

(2) Devaluation of the victim. When the victim is perceived as dangerous, inferior or worthless, what's done to them doesn't seem so bad. Protesters are called rabble and rent-a-crowd. Enemies are said to be ruthless and untrustworthy and sometimes labelled terrorists.

(3) Reinterpretation. A different explanation is given for the action, making it seem more acceptable. Or someone else might be blamed. Protesters are said to be provocative. Their injuries are claimed to be slight. Treatment of prisoners is said to be "abuse," not torture.

(4) Official channels. Expert investigators, formal inquiries or courts are used to give a stamp of approval to what happened, leading to an appearance of justice without the substance. An inquiry into police beatings might take years and lead to minor penalties against a few scapegoats. Meanwhile, public anger dies down and the problems remain.

(5) Intimidation and bribery. Victims and witnesses are threatened or given incentives to keep quiet and not oppose what happened. Witnesses to police brutality might be threatened should they speak out...

To increase outrage from bullying, you need to challenge the five methods. Here's the general approach.

(1) Expose the bullying.

(2) Validate the target, by demonstrating good performance, loyalty, honesty and other positive traits.

(3) Interpret the bullying as unfair, and explain why contrary explanations are wrong.

(4) Mobilise support. Avoid official channels or use them as tools in exposing the unfairness.

(5) Refuse to be intimidated or bribed, and expose intimidation and bribery...

People high up in organisations nearly always support the chain of command. A top manager will almost always support subordinates in the face of challenges from lower-level employees.

Grievance procedures have many disadvantages. They are:

• Slow - it could take months for your matter to be dealt with, while the bullying continues or you are left in limbo.
• Procedural - the focus is on technicalities, not the unfairness of the behaviour.
• Time-consuming - you end up spending vast amounts of time and effort preparing submissions and responding to queries.
• Expensive - if you need legal assistance.
• Hidden - matters are handled without publicity, and often confidentiality is expected. This serves as a form of cover-up...

Here are some ways to deter bullying.

Collect lots of information about your own good performance. Keep copies in safe places. If you plan to act against corruption or bad practices, collect extensive information to back up your claims.

Develop your skills in speaking and writing. Know how to talk with others. Learn how to write persuasive accounts, how to prepare a leaflet, how to run a publicity campaign and how to set up a website - or have reliable friends willing to assist.

Avoid doing things that can be used against you. If you spend much of your time bad-mouthing others, getting others to do your work, and claiming credit for what you didn't do, you can't expect support when the crunch comes. Have others help you gain insight into being collegial, collaborative, approachable and civil.

Be prepared to survive. You may need financial reserves. You will need psychological strength. You need exercise and good diet to maintain your health. You need supportive relationships. When you come under attack, you may need all your reserves: financial, psychological, physical and interpersonal. If you're living on the edge, you're more vulnerable.

Build alliances. There is great strength in collective action. If you have a decent union, join it and be active.

Develop options. Find out about other potential jobs. Think about a career change. Consider downshifting to a less costly lifestyle. Sometimes it's better to walk away from a stressful job. If you have such options, you're actually in a stronger position to resist, if that's your choice.

Help others. If you assist other workers who are bullied, you develop useful insights and skills - and others are more likely to help you should you need it...

From:
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/07bullying.html

University of GlamXXXX is awarded 'Divestors of People' standard

University of GlamXXXX is awarded 'Divestors of People' standard. For more info check the Hall of Shame.

This university meets at least 50% of the criteria, including: cronyism, incompetence, favoritism, or inequality, disguise of management failures, internal grievance procedures are used selectively by managers - against staff, and some academic managers are untouchable despite their failures.

Would a so-called Christian university sanction and defend this in the tune of thousands of pounds?

...At a practical level, every professor should be aware of conditions that increase vulnerability to mobbing in academe. Here are five:

• Foreign birth and upbringing, especially as signaled by a foreign accent;

• Being different from most colleagues in an elemental way (by sex, for instance, sexual orientation, skin color, ethnicity, class origin, or credentials);

• Belonging to a discipline with ambiguous standards and objectives, especially those (like music or literature) most affected by postmodern scholarship;

• Working under a dean or other administrator in whom, as Nietzsche put it, “the impulse to punish is powerful”;

• An actual or contrived financial crunch in one’s academic unit (according to an African proverb, when the watering hole gets smaller, the animals get meaner).

Other conditions that heighten the risk of being mobbed are more directly under a prospective target’s control. Five major ones are:

• Having opposed the candidate who ends up winning appointment as one’s dean or chair (thereby looking stupid, wicked, or crazy in the latter’s eyes);

• Being a ratebuster, achieving so much success in teaching or research that colleagues’ envy is aroused;

• Publicly dissenting from politically correct ideas (meaning those held sacred by campus elites);

• Defending a pariah in campus politics or the larger cultural arena;

• Blowing the whistle on or even having knowledge of serious wrongdoing by locally powerful workmates.

From: The Unkindly Art of Mobbing by Kenneth Westhues

Ban Bullying at Work Day 2007 - 7th November 2007

Ban Bullying at Work Day is now only 2 weeks away! Our main aim is to raise awareness of the issue in the UK and to encourage both individuals and organisations to have the strength to stand up and Speak Out against bullying. This year we have a new range of promotional materials, incentives and events to get you and your organisation involved.

The new campaign website is up and running so please take a minute to have a look at: www.banbullyingatwork.com

As part of our Speak Out campaign, we will be releasing 1000 balloons across the London skyline on the 7th November – the official Ban Bullying at Work Day and we want you to get involved!

Each balloon represents an ordeal that an individual has suffered at the hands of a bully, and releasing them will be an act of solidarity. Attached to every balloon will be a personal message relating to workplace bullying. We want as many people to get involved as possible. If you would like to have a personal and confidential message on a balloon then go to the website to find out more information.

This year we hope to get over a million people in the UK involved in the campaign to Speak Out and let everyone know that bullying in the workplace is too costly to ignore!

Please don't hesistate to get in touch if you have any questions at all.

Kind regards

The Andrea Adams Trust www.andreaadamstrust.org

Anonymous said...

Please publicly name and shame Guiliano Premier and Alan Guwy for running a campaign of lies against a research fellow and for denying that research fellow the right to work in a healthy research environment, a punishment made for questioning to their practices.

Bullying complaints quadruple

The number of teachers complaining of being bullied by colleagues and managers has increased four-fold in a year, according to the Teacher Support Network (TSN), which provides a helpline and counselling for teachers. It is so concerned that it has commissioned a study on bullying in schools and colleges by Glamorgan University.

Professor Duncan Lewis of Glamorgan said that 5 to 10 per cent of employees in most professions were exposed to bullying, at a social and economic cost to society. In the summer term this year, 338 teachers lodged complaints of bullying with the help­line – a considerable increase on the 83 complaints for the same period last year.

TSN hopes to ascertain whether the rise in complaints was caused by worsening behaviour or greater willingness to report bullying. Patrick Nash, the network’s chief executive, said that workplace bullying troubled increasing numbers of teachers and lecturers.

“The effects include stress, anxiety or trauma for the victim, a decline in emotional and physical well-being, sickness absence and, in extreme cases, resignation,” he said.

Denise McKeon, a Bournemouth secondary school teacher, spent long periods off work suffering stress and depression during two years in which she said colleagues shouted at her in front of pupils.

She won a financial settlement in 2005, after months taking the anti-depressant Prozac. She is now supply teaching, but still finds life hard.

“The stress from the way I was treated has changed me,” she said. “I only just function now. I find it difficult to complete simple chores in the home, feel tired and have no energy to focus on my children.

“It’s like breaking a leg. Stress makes you weak and you never really get the strength back.”

Bournemouth Borough Council said that bullying was not the reason for Ms McKeon’s departure. Vicky Hughes, a council manager, said: “Had there been an allegation or complaint of bullying or similar conduct against anyone working in the school, management would have taken this seriously and investigated.”

Show solidarity, contribute to this blog, join our online forum

This blog is visited by many every day and from all around the world. In the last few months we had around 15000 visits. Although we receive various contributions, we wish to receive even more.

We would also like to increase the membership of our online forum at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bullied_academics/ and we invite you to join us.

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.