Good Luck proving any of it.
And conversely
Good luck defending yourself against that worthless employee you tried to fire.
Not really. This law will be used against unpopular and uncharismatic bosses. Charismatic bullies who are clever enough to have some allies will get away with their behavior as before.
Um, free market does not mean ‘everyone gets a job with the pay and benefits they want’. Free market means that employees and employers are free to decide if they want to come to a mutual agreement on employment.
Slee
Nor is there anything you should be able to do about it, not as far as involving legal resources anyway. There are always going to be people who will make you feel like shit, that’s just life. Mature people deal with it and move on.
There are 2 ways to approach a career: you can take control of it and actively guide it; or you can sit back passively and let other people control your career for you. You take control of your career by taking continuing education classes, taking advantage of volunteer opportunities to learn new skills, taking on new responsibilities at existing jobs, and networking with your peers to keep an active support network which you can call on when necessary. The more valuable you become to an employer, the less dependant you are when things aren’t going right and the easier it is to move on to the next challenge. There is an old saying: “The more you learn, the more you earn”.
Your boss is just a person like any other, he doesn’t deserve to have so much control over your life! Don’t let him!
I’ve never seen a company that would condone this kind of behavior. If you can prove that he is falsifying records report him to his superiors immediately. These 2 problems can easily be handled in house without the need to bring in additional legal support from outside of the company.
Everybody’s asshole threshhold is different - and if an anti bully law is passed you can be assured that HR departments everywhere will move to curtail any behavior that they see as a potential lawsuit.
My biggest fear about anti bullying lawsuits is the fact that we are all assholes sometimes. Are we really coming to the point where we are so afraid to confront the people around us that we look to big brother to take care of us? Anti bully laws don’t protect anybody - they just add a lot of unnecessary hassel. They will only serve to hurt business and make the office environment a more boring and sterile place than it is today.
Of course we deserve to be treated with a modicum of respect. And if somebody doesn’t treat us well, they’re an asshole! Deal with it and move on - don’t look to somebody else to fight your battles for you.
I don’t understand why so many people get upset about this. The boss HAS MORE POWER THAN YOU. Thus it is the duty of the law to redistribute that power so he can not abuse you with it.
If you didn’t want a law like this, then these companies should have been firing these assholes a long time ago. You didn’t, so your workers are rising up against you.
The purpose of the law is to legislate morality where people are not decent enough to handle it for themselves. Take for instance murder: we shouldn’t have to make it against the law, but there are people who don’t care, and would murder people to further their own selfish goals. So we had to make it a net negative for them to do this by passing a law making it illegal.
I’m sorry this pisses you off–but if you are a good boss, you won’t be affected, and if you are a bad boss, well, we want to piss you off for being such jerks. We are a democracy, and if you don’t want to contribute to the society, but rather to your own selfish needs, society has no reason to help you out.
Basically, it all boils down to too many people being lawful evil, thinking that they’ve earned the ability to treat people poorly. And we’re taking that power away from them. I would think moral people would be happy about that.
Most people who go to work do so to make enough money to pay the bills and put food on the table. For some, or maybe even a lot, when a boss abuses his or her power it’s harder to do anything about it than it is if it was a stranger, neighbor, family member, what have you.
For 11.5 years I worked in a production plant. After a while I hated my job (no boss bullying, just a bunch of other reasons) and tried getting another job. Mainly I wanted an office job but couldn’t get interviews because I wasn’t qualified. In 2007 the plant shut down I got an opportunity to go to college. For the longest time my dream position was either programming or IT work. I could only go for two years, so I went for Network Technology. I saw plenty of Network Tech positions where only Associate’s degrees were required and went into a program where second year students often got jobs. Not only did I get my degree, I got a CCNA certification and an A+ certification. Since graduating in 2009 I can’t find an IT job. I also took some classes that should have helped for office work. I can’t get an office job either. So I did get the extra education. Fat good it’s done me.
Usually that’s true. But what if your bosses boss is buddy buddy with your boss and has his or her back?
True.
Well some changes will come, but I doubt things will get that much worse.
I’m not familliar with the legislation in New York state that forms the basis of this, however up here in Ontario, we just had Nerf training about a month ago based on new changes to the workplace standards act. That was for the floor side hourly employees, and not the bosses, but I am sure that they had their own little meeting with HR and been given list of things like whats already been mentioned.
I only mention this , as it sounds a little to coincidental to the lectures and power points that we were given, that probably within the year employees are gonna be listening to their own version of the new world order in the corp world.
The only people who are going to win in the end , are the folks in HR. My job in the auto industry is based on getting parts out the door, onto a truck and off to never never land in the final assembly plants. My plant managers job, is to make sure that his supervisors solve my problems and sometimes that means that he has to use harsh language at a minimum to clear log jams.
My own opinion of him is not for a searchable data base, so I wont write it and leave it at that. As I am sure that his opinion of me is likewise, but taking tools away from my supervisors is not going to make my employment a long term proposition. Too many of the fucks want to ship mine and other jobs to third world shit holes for profit reasons, and now some do gooders in Albany and elseware want to give the corparate controllers more ammunition for relocating.
Without a balancing Tarriff that would make this prohibitive, I can’t get on board a piece of legislation thats supposedly for my bennifit.
Declan
Intersting philosophy.
Excellent idea. Now that you’ve validated legislating morality, I think I will require you to attend a rhuch of my choice, and pray as I wish, and tithe as I wish, and kowtow to soldiers and bureaucrats as I wish, and never smoke or drink and eat only rice cakes and processed vegetables, and run 10 miles a day, and aget rid of all television and movie programming I don’t like. It’s for you own good.
That’s right. You don’t need freedoms. If you are good, well then all my changes won’t hurt you a bit. And if you are bad, then you deserve to be whipped and beaten back into line.
Now shine my shoes, little slave!
Yeah, really. BigT, I often find your posts insightful, but that one was so full of suck it won an AVN award.
So, if this bill passes, won’t it be signed into law by a governor that tried to intimidate a public employee into withdrawing a sexual harassment complaint?
- No. We have yet to see any actual evidence that he did.
- No. She wasn’t a public employee, as far as I can tell.
- Maybe. He might veto it.
I think it’s sad that we have to legislate this kind of thing. In an better world, bully behavior should get the boss fired (especially falsifying evaluations and reports) because it’s company policy and rules that sort of behavior isn’t allowed. However, we do not live in that better world, so these laws are better than nothing and they may do a lot to reduce workplace violence. Most people don’t have a choice about where they work. They are constrained by the need to support themselves and their dependents.
As a lawyer who does a lot of work in employment law, I’ve been approached by a number of potential clients who want something done about the bullying they endure at work. Unfortunately, under the circumstances they describe, there is very little I can do unless and until some sort of law is on the books. In an effort to find some way to help these people, I’ve done a fair amount of research on the topic. I’ll share some points of what I’ve learned, and perhaps they will help clarify the discussion.
Note that this is not legal advice. Also, since different jurisdictions approach the question with varying laws and practices, my remarks will be necessarily general unless I specify otherwise.
I’ll begin first of all, by describing what workplace bullying isn’t. It isn’t physical violence–if it was, civil lawsuits could be brought, and criminal charges could be laid. It is not sexual harassment; again, that could open the perpetrator to criminal charges and/or human rights complaints. It doesn’t tend to be one single instance of a behaviour (as Roderick Femm described), nor is it anything to do with employees complaining about bad reviews. Above all, it is not about power redistribution from the bosses to the workers.
What it is, though, is not currently addressed by the laws and practices of most jurisdictions. A good rundown of the situation is at this site; and to provide a definition for those who do not wish to follow the link, I’ll quote the quick definition from the site:
This definition works to demonstrate that what we’re really dealing with here is psychological harassment. This would seem to be borne out of the stories my prospective clients have told me. They’re necessarily anecdotal, but I think they provide some good examples:
– When the target of the bullying joins a group at a lunchroom table, the group silently gets up and moves to another table.
– When the target asks about the date, time, and place of a scheduled workplace social event (e.g. the annual Christmas party), he or she is told, “We’re not telling you because we don’t want you there.”
– When most interactions with superiors and/or co-workers involve the target being called epithets like “stupid,” “idiot,” and “asshole.”
– For no good (or any) reason, requiring the target employee–and only the target employee–to notify the boss when he or she goes on a break and lunch, and when he or she returns. When a reason for the singling-out is asked about, the target is told, “Because I said so,” or “I don’t have to tell you,” or similar.
Crafting any sort of law to respond to these and similar situations is a challenge. The proposed New York law, excerpted above, seems to be fairly comprehensive; but at this point, it is only proposed. An anti-workplace-bullying law that is currently on the books is contained in the Quebec legislation, An Act Respecting Labour Standards, R.S.Q. c.N 1.1:
It’s a briefer definition than we have above, but still (I think) suitable for the law’s purposes. It works with what workplace bullying isn’t, as above; and it puts the onus on the employer to (a) not do this; and (b), not to allow the employer’s workers to do this.
Must post this up and get to a few things right now, but I will try to check back from time to time. Anyway, I hope this helped with understanding the topic.
I really don’t think government should be involved, everyone at my company gets along as long as the negroes and women know their place.
The spirit of the law is good. Not sure about how it will turn out
It’s obviously intended to tackle sustained bullying against an individual.
However, ‘A SINGLE ACT SHALL NOT CONSTITUTE ABUSIVE CONDUCT, UNLESS
46 THE TRIER OF FACT FINDS SUCH ACT TO BE ESPECIALLY SEVERE OR EGREGIOUS’ looks like a field day for the lawyers.
It’s not perfect, but if it passes it’ll get sorted out.
But bosses are supposed to be bullies. At least, that’s what I learned from popular culture when I was a child. Bosses were people like Mr. Slate (from The Flintstones), Larry Tate (from Bewitched), Mr. Mooney (from The Lucy Show), Sarge (from Beetle Bailey), Perry White (from Superman), and perhaps most archetypally of all, Mr. Dithers (Dagwood Bumstead’s boss), from whom I learned that a boss is an authority figure who yells at you, kicks you in the seat of the pants, fires you about once a week, and, inexplicably, with whom you often socialize.
The modern boss is much less loud and blustery. He’s well-meaning but clueless (Michael Scott), evil but clueless (Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss), or just plain evil (Montgomery Burns).
If we pass a law that says bosses can’t be bullies, we’re upsetting the whole natural order of things! What’s next—a law that says teachers can’t beat their students with a hickory switch and make them sit in the corner with a large conical cap on their heads?
NY should just post a sign at the border directing businesses to other states. Lawsuits are not an enticement to bring in or keep businesses.