You are not alone...

This is a great site, and has made me feel less alone by reading it. Thank you. - Anonymous post


Dear anonymous, you are not alone.

We can understand why and how you would feel lonely in this battle. It is in the nature of what we experience, the overwhelming sense of injustice that one finds unbearable to live with. Sadly, there are no easy ways out.

The cliche is that you ought to first look after your health, eat well, exercise, etc. But the shock is usually so big that depression settles in and motivation becomes non-existent. If you are fighting a legal battle, then things become harder to cope with. There is financial and emotional strain, plus the prospect of being out of work for some time or even forever.

The purpose of this blog is multiple: to inform, to expose, to let know that we are not alone, to support, to fight on... We can only suggest that you try to get in touch with others who have similar experiences. This may confirm what you already know but it will also provide some comfort and possibly some support to get through hard times. You are feeling alone but try not to be alone. You can always email us.

The problem is...

I believe a competent scientific analysis would show that bullying has direct and immediate benefits to the bully and the bully's employer (in the same sense that robbery and murder might also have direct and immediate benefits), but the long-term effect would be indisputably costly in lost productivity, sickness, staff turnover, de-skilling and opportunity costs (i.e. the potential activities that bullying replaced).

But each of those HR pounds was attached to a decision, and emotion and a reputation. There was no attachment to the non-decision to confront bullying. This is why bullying (or at least the possibility of bullying) must be identified, acknowledged and acted upon from the very start of the complaints procedure. Most complaints procedures begin with denial, "both sides" of the story and "clarifying misunderstandings" that invest in supporting the bully's status.

Anonymous contribution

The Concorde Fallacy

The Concorde Fallacy: the probability of continued investment in an activity is directly proportional to the investment already made, and entirely independent of the prospects of the activity's successful outcome.

In the original Anglo-French aircraft project taxpayers managed to expend 660 million pounds to earn a total revenue of 280 million operating 16 planes for the benefit of conspicious expenditure by the rich and famous.

Likewise once an institution fails to recognise bullying in the workplace, the financial and emotional expenditure demands further efforts to prove that the allegation is unfounded.

Contribution by Stuart

[Also known as the Concorde Effect, sunk cost fallacy, or our boys shall not have died in vain fallacy. In economics, any past investment which cannot be altered by present or future actions is considered to be sunk cost. The Concorde fallacy is the act of allowing sunk cost to affect future investment decisions. - From: http://everything2.com]

Connections...

Note the close connections between Kingston and St. George's NHS Trust, whose medical training programme Kingston validates.

Most importantly, note the case of Ian Perkin, former finance director at St. George's who was victimized for blowing the whistle on fudged cancelled operation statistics. (See: http://www.nhsexpose.co.uk)

Kingston Board Member, Colin Watts was the Personnel Director at St. George's at the time. Peter Scott is on the Board at St. George's.

Get the picture?

Anonymous contribution

Great is Justice!

Great is Justice!

Justice is not settled by legislators and laws—it is in the Soul; It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love, pride, the attraction of gravity, can; It is immutable—it does not depend on majorities—majorities or what not, come at last before the same passionless and exact tribunal.

For justice are the grand natural lawyers, and perfect judges—is it in their Souls; It is well assorted—they have not studied for nothing—the great includes the less. They rule on the highest grounds—they oversee all eras, states, administrations.

The perfect judge fears nothing—he could go front to front before God; Before the perfect judge all shall stand back—life and death shall stand back—heaven and hell shall stand back.

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass, 1900

Mobbing

There's an article in the 14 April 2006 Chronicle of Higher Education, called "Mob Rule," by John Gravois, that examines a phenomenon known as mobbing, in particular workplace mobbing (and even more particularly, academic workplace mobbing), defined as "an impassioned, collective campaign by co-workers to exclude, punish, and humiliate a targeted worker." His descriptions of targets and the general pattern of action remind me of Rene Girard's and James Alison's on scapegoating.

Gravois exlores the stages and elements of mobbing, which has a usual pattern: a period of increasing social isolation, a period of petty harassment, leading to a 'critical incident' that demands swift action and adjudication.

Some comments that resonate with my experience (and that certainly correlate with Girardian thought):

• Groupthink: "The Law of Group Polarization, formulated by Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago, says that a bunch of people who agree with each other on some point will, given the chance to get together and talk, come away agreeing more strenuously on a more extreme point. If this tendency has a curdling effect on intellectual debates, it can have a downright menacing effect when the point of agreement is that a particular colleague is a repugnant nutjob."

• Elements of the Mobbing Process: "Calling some departmental mess a mobbing does not imply that the victim is wholly innocent, Mr. [Kenneth] Westhues [a sociologist at the University of Waterloo, Ontario] says. But it does imply that the campaign against the target has probably been based on fuzzy and unspecific charges, that it has proceeded with a degree of secrecy, that its timing has been hasty, that its rhetoric has been overheated and overwrought, and that it has been backed by an eerie unanimity."

• Original Sin: "'I have a friend who says that there's only two kinds of people in the world,' Mr. Westhues says, 'those who believe that there's original sin and those who don't.' 'I think probably mobbing research as a whole is more on the side of the original-sin folks,' he says."

• Traits of Mobbing Targets: "Essentially, Mr. Westhues says, anything that can be a basis for bickering can be a basis for mobbing: race, sex, political difference, cultural difference, intellectual style. Professors with foreign accents, he says, often get mobbed, as do professors who frequently file grievances and 'make noise.' But perhaps the most common single trait of mobbing targets, he says, is that they excel.
  
  "'To calculate the odds of your being mobbed," Mr. Westhues writes in his most comprehensive book on mobbing, The Envy of Excellence: Administrative Mobbing of High-Achieving Professors, 'count the ways you show your workmates up: fame, publications, teaching scores, connections, eloquence, wit, writing skills, athletic ability, computer skills, salary, family money, age, class, pedigree, looks, house, clothes, spouse, children, sex appeal. Any one of these will do.'"

• Mobbing - A Charged Term: "'Mobbing is such a colorful term that it tends to pre-empt debate," says Rich Fedder, ... the chairman of the Southern Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. 'It plays into an American love of talking about victims.'
  
  "... Leveling the charge of mobbing can be a quick and easy way to seize the moral high ground in a dispute. And while Mr. Westhues does, in fact, see Mr. Bean's case as a mobbing, he largely agrees with this argument. 'There's a tendency for anybody who wants some leverage in campus politics to say, You know, I'm being mobbed,' he says, 'and the whole thing becomes quite meaningless.' This is one reason why Mr. Westhues, unlike many mobbing researchers, is dead set against anti-mobbing legislation. ...

• Institutional Justification and Complicity: "'One of the most painful experiences in my life,' Mr. Westhues says, 'has been to go to dismissal hearings where everybody is sitting around a table as if they were embodiments of pure reason.' What's really going on in many of those settings, he thinks, is just brutish behavior ratified by procedure."
  

"He said that universities should , that, in his opinion, simply dignify pettiness and give professors a chance to have power over one another. ... He argued that an ethics committee 'lets people play judge' and 'brings out the worst in good people.' ...

• Creating a Mob-Neutral Environment: In his classes at Waterloo, Mr. Westhues addresses his students as Mr. and Ms. and urges them to address him in kind — not as 'Dr. Westhues' and, just as importantly, not as 'Ken.' He explains to them that he is not there to lord over them, nor to be their friend (friendship being the flip side of enmity), but to engage with them professionally as fellow citizens in the pursuit of truth.
  
  "This is an earnest attempt to foster the kind of atmosphere that Mr. Westhues believes is relatively safe from mobbing -- one where there is not too much authority, but also not too much familiarity."

Rectify Failures of Unison (and other unions) - Petition

Description/History:

I have been employed in the public sector for 20 years, NHS also a paid member member of Unison for 18 years. In 2005 I raised a Grievance against my employer re Bullying and Harassment in the workplace. I feel that if Unison would have allowed me Legal Advice earlier in this matter it would have been resolved much sooner.

Petition:

We, the undersigned, call on Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister to refuse any further donations from Unison to fund the Labour Party. These funds should be made available to allow victims of Workplace Bullying easier access to Legal Advice. As unlike criminals we are not allowed Legal Aid. There are many of us who have lost not only our careers, families, friends, homes but even our sanity.

Sign the petition
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Also:

UNISON CLAIM

A contact is making a claim against UNISON in an English County Court. She is trying to make a dossier to present to the court re Unison's patern of inaction. She's hoping for emails with

* Short summary
* Name
* Membership Number
* Area Unison Office

She does not need anyone to give private addresses and will treat details in the utmost confidence.

If the judge can see what is common behaviour of Unison and others it could be beneficial to her and to all trade unionists.

More info at: http://www.employees.org.uk/
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Also some stories regarding union inaction and/or wrong action:

...One sign of a union trying to divert money away from helping members is when the solicitor is provided at the very last minute - late enough to use the member's own work but too late to do any more and early enough to settle and take a success fee. The typical scam is that there is no clear contract about what's available to members, so an official has to nominate a case to the organisation's solicitor. The member's status is so low in the union hierarchy that s/he might not even meet the official: rejection might be passed via a volunteer, even in a case is strong enough for a private lawyer to win. Or, after pretended misunderstandings and difficulties getting clear answers, there is a sudden change of mind and the member is referred to a named solicitor. A rep reported to me that the union would back me if I submitted by own complaint form to the tribunal. I was given an hours' interview. I asked for my own choice of lawyer but was forced to use one on the other side of town that an ex-colleague had complained about before.

This inflexibility meant something, but I was not sure what it meant and vaguely gave the union the benefit of my doubt. The union had missed basic time limits, and during this interview the lawyer did not want the hassle of reading the disability discrimination questionnaire, the grievance letter, understanding time limits or looking at the evidence which I had in bags full. Nor of course did he tell me the the union had missed basic time limits, although I suspect that he told them when I complained about him...

...One reason for union misbehaviour is that disgruntled members are often exhausted, sometimes sick, sometimes looking after new babies, or hoping to keep up appearances at the next employer. They are as unlikely to sue as people who buy fake viagra, and unions know this. In commercial terms, these members are often at the end or their relationship with the union and out of touch with new recruits. Unions know this too. It only takes a vague contract in an obscure rule-book that members don't even see till they are sacked and desparate and the chance of being sued for ripping-off members can be reduced to almost nil...

...A Carlisle teacher who sued the National Union of Teachers (NUT) for failing to give her legal advice when she ran into difficulties at her school has won her case. Joanne Sherry, 48, paid £3,000 over 23 years to be a member of the country’s largest teaching union, but when she sought help from its officers they failed to act on her behalf. Miss Sherry, who taught at Trinity School, asked for help from her union in 2000 when she felt she was being bullied and intimidated by former head teacher Mike Gibbons.

She successfully fought her case at Newcastle County Court yesterday in what is believed to be the first of its kind in the country.

With a mounting workload and a breakdown in communication between Miss Sherry and the school’s management, she began to suffer from work related stress. NUT officers, Mike McDonald and Bryan Griffiths, advised her to stay off work until Mr Gibbons left the school in October 2001. The school also issued Miss Sherry with a letter in December 2001 outlining six allegations against her. She was suspended from school for a year. Miss Sherry says these allegations were designed to cause her undue stress and anxiety and force her to resign. She refused to do so and continued to battle for an investigation into the allegations against her.

But, despite continuing to plead for assistance from the NUT, nothing happened. Union reps failed to accompany her to meetings, did not return her phone calls and e-mails and refused to give her proper advice. Eventually, in 2002 she reached a compromise agreement with her employers and left the school due to ill health.

District Judge Alderson said: “The NUT had Miss Sherry over a barrel. They basically told her if she didn't accept their advice then that was it. They washed their hands of her.”

After the case Miss Sherry told her local newspaper: “I feel justice has been done. The NUT refused to give me advice on the procedures of my employers and refused to accompany me to disciplinary hearings. It failed to pursue my grievances." The NUT must now pay Miss Sherry £3,800.

Factual note 1: Joanne Sherry discovered cheap legal insurance bundled with her home contents insurance after the National Union of Teachers refused to help her, so she used that instead and won her case. Her next job was for the county court service. She sued the National Union of Teachers for her wasted subscription.

Factual note 2: NUT fought the case and threatened Joanne Sherry with extra-ordinary costs if she lost. The NUT then refused to pay without a bailiff visit.

Factual note 3: Hamilton v GMB is a case of a long-serving volunteer rep badly treated by his union because officials believed he told members of another legal deal available at Stefan Cross solicitors, who were no-win no-fee, during negotiations on equal pay. The union held that their second-rate pay negotiation was better for members in the long term than a short-term victory by a no-win no-fee lawyer about equal pay.

Other GMB cases in the appeal tribunal have been about disgruntled ex-GMB staff, rather than the GMB making case law for its members.

Factual note 4: UNISON v Jervis is another case of someone suing a union for bad service - in this case at Watford Employment Tribunal for discrimination, followed by an appeal from the union side. They paid two barresters and a city solicitor to argue their case, while their service to the member had been a volunteer who had "spoken to" a paid official before the two of them decided not to back a case. It was a case the member went-on to win with a private lawyer...

...Reality is more like this: A thief mugs you and steals your video. You know there is a problem of thieving and track the boy down because there is no crown prosecution service or police force for employment law. You have to prosecute the thief privately, thinking "the stress is bad for my health and career, but someone has to do this". Then the judge says "what efforts have you made to watch other channels and reduce your losses caused by the thief's removal of your video?". In the judge's eyes, the video belonged to the thief all along. "Anyway, it is all a long time ago and the boy has moved-on to armed robbery and extortion. The fact that you were in hospital after being mugged can hardly excuse your late prosecution, and the fact that you managed to prosecute makes me wonder whether you were ill at all...

From: http://www.employees.org.uk/

Kingston University witness intimidation

This file shows evidence of public officials in the UK sending threatening letters to former employees and their solicitor designed to intimidate them into turning over all existing copies of key evidence of corruption at a major UK higher education institution, Kingston University, committed by public officials associated with the University and with the NHS.

Such intimidation represents attempts to pervert the course of justice. The evidence includes support for the notion that the sender of the threats, University Secretary, Donald Beaton, did so with knowledge and approval of the University's Vice-Chancellor, Sir Peter Scott, a close confidante and advisor to now former Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

Furthermore, the evidence that is referred to in the letters implicates Colin Watts, member of the Board of Governors of the University and high level NHS official, who was formerly Personnel Director at St. George's NHS Trust during the highly publicized scandal involving the coverup of fraudulent cancelled operation statistics, in which Finance Director, Ian Perkin was sacked for refusing to cooperate with the coverup. Hence the University and Mr Watts has a high level of motivation to see to it that this story does not see the light of day.

The audience [for this story] is the general public, but especially NHS and HE workers, as well as the wider community of legal scholars. It has been leaked in order to expose the truth about the level of corruption found in British HE and NHS organizations, leading up to the level of the Prime Minister's office.

From: http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Kingston_University_witness_intimidation

Expression of support for Howard Fredrics

To: press@kingston.ac.uk
Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 8:19 AM
Subject: Expression of support for Howard Fredrics

I would like to express my concern about the workplace mobbing problems at Kingston University. I am particularly concerned about the case of Howard Fredrics, who used to be employed as a senior lecturer in music.

I understand that eleven colleagues 'paid him back' for making a complaint of administrative ill-treatment. And that their behaviour has affected Howard's health and his career. I understand that one other academic at your university has already been driven to suicide by workplace abuse.

I urge all members of the staff of Kingston University to desist from workplace abuse and mobbing behaviour.

XXXXX XXXXX

Edge Hill

Queensland

Howard Fredrics seeks redress at Kingston University (UK)

The bureaucratized university plays havoc with bright, creative minds. In July of 2006, Diana Winstanley, a 45-year-old professor in the School of Human Resource Management at Kingston University, hanged herself. As at many other universities, a significant number of faculty have been on leave in recent years for occupational stress.

American-born Howard Fredrics, a senior lecturer in music at Kingston until his formal dismissal in 2006, has published a well-documented multi-media website on the conflict that led to his ouster and his efforts since then for redress, and on similar conflicts involving other faculty at Kingston. The website is also useful for its critique of British employment law, in particular the easily abused "some other substantial reason" for an employee's dismissal. Of particular interest in Fredrics's own case is the ganging up of eleven colleagues and their filing a collective grievance against him, apparently with the administration's encouragement, following his own formal complaint of administrative ill-treatment.

The mire of legal twists and turns since then is deep, involving charges of witness intimidation, anti-Semitism, and much else.

From: http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/mobnews06.htm#KIN

Howard needs our support and our solidarity. He is facing difficulties that show bias against him by the legal system. His health is suffering, his career more than likely ruined, and the financial cost has been huge.

Please write emails of complaint and support for Howard to Kingston University Press Office: press@kingston.ac.uk

Howard's supportive local MP is Vincent Cable:

Constituency Office:
2a Lion Road, Twickenham TW1 4JQ, England

Phone: 020 8892 0215, 020 8892 0218

Vincent Cable should be encouraged to take the matter further.
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Do nothing and watch from the sidelines as an academic career and life is ruined, or do something however small, for if we all do it then it may have some impact. Please act today.