Reflection Journal Questions Week 2
Bullying at workplace
This week we looked at employment laws and application. We have studied in detail the following topics: discrimination, harassment, unions, acts, laws and what are the ways to protect yourself. For our discussion topic we had: bullying at workplace. First of all, I would like to start with definition. What is bullying and how do we see it? Most of the websites are referring only to the school bulling and how to deal with it. However in real life we can face it everywhere and at any age.
After reading few articles and books distillations, I can summarize bullying as mistreatment severe enough to compromise a targeted worker's health, jeopardize her or his job and career, and strain relationships with friends and family. It is a laser-focused, systematic campaign of interpersonal destruction. It has nothing to do with work itself. It is driven by the bully's personal agenda and actually prevents work from getting done. It begins with one person singling out the target. Before long, the bully easily and swiftly recruits others to gang up on the target, which increases the sense of isolation.
So bulling directly applies to discrimination and harassment. I personally think that bullying at workplace is unacceptable and it is manifestation of personal weakness and insolvency. However on the other hand from my personal experience I noted that some emotional pressure is required for some workers. Though it does not apply to all the workers but for some, unique ones it is absolutely necessary in terms of their personal and career development. Few specific types of people need to be put in extreme conditions to demonstrate their ability and skills from the best side. Nevertheless personal approach should never cross the border of bullying. So how do we distinguish and how can we protect ourselves?
First of all we should know what laws affect our company, our country and how to protect the employers and employees. On the lessons we have talked about Unions and their role in employment cycle. Unions are aiming to support and protect you until you are in their union. So how do we know how to choose? On one of the lessons Anu did a presentation for Labor Union topic. He talked about what they can do and what are their names. Referring to my previous work labor unions, I realized that they do not protect us from bulling at workplace. So what about laws? I looked mainly at U.S. law system, as it is the most accessible for use, however for the future I plan to compare it with other countries. So after the search I found that no federal law directly addresses bullying, in some cases, bullying overlaps with discriminatory harassment when it is based on race, national origin, color, sex, age, disability, or religion. It leaves us with no direct and valid law regulation. You can of course apply it to discrimination and harassment as I said earlier but isn’t bullying bad enough jut by itself? Not including race, nationality, color and etc. Most of the people get bullied at workplace not for the race, sex or anything else. They get bullied because somebody’s misbehavior and small mindless. In conclusion I think that Government, Unions and employers must consider to apply an Act of anti-bullying behavior at workplace with steep penalties.