|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Essay by Kathy Hermes
Op-Ed Contribution for the Hartford Courant
April, 2007
during campaign to pass CT SB 371
Op-Ed Contribution for the Hartford Courant
April, 2007
during campaign to pass CT SB 371
"Connecticut Employees Need Protection from Workplace Bullies NOW"
It is almost two years since my childhood friend of 33 years, Marlene, took a revolver out of its box, loaded it, put to her temple and pulled the trigger. Her 8-page suicide letter to me declared that she had come to her decision because "my boss ... has made my life utterly unbearable." When Marlene died, she was 46 years old, healthy, well-loved, respected nationally as a land manager, and employed in what she had once called "the best job I ever had." Marlene was maliciously abused to death.
The Connecticut Legislature is considering a bill, SB 371, called "An Act Concerning Workplace Safety," the kind of legislation often known as an anti-workplace bullying statute. Sixteen other states are considering such legislation, modeled after a proposal by the Workplace Bullying Institute in Bellingham, Washington. The bill would make it illegal to subject any person to an abusive workplace. "Abusive" is defined as acts of verbal or physical abuse done with "malice." Malice means the employer intends the employee to suffer and is aware of the suffering. These abusive acts must be of such a nature that the employee resigns or suffers retaliation for reporting them. It allows the employee to sue the employer.
I learned what "malicious abuse" meant firsthand from Marlene, who was a high-ranking federal employee. According to a journal she kept, her new boss turned her life into a nightmare, starting benignly but escalating quickly. "[He] was not very cordial ... John later told me that Ron seemed shocked that I was a GS-13 and said 'She is really a GS-13?' John said yes and a damned good one ... He said Ron didn't say any good things about me ... "
In the months that followed, what seemed like bad management grew into abuse directed solely at Marlene. She never told her subordinate employees what was happening. She did confide in her friends. She lost weight, going from a size 14 to a size 8 in months. She had trouble concentrating for the first time in her life. She experienced panic attacks. She saw a doctor, who prescribed anti-anxiety medication. In emails from Ron, "he managed to put me down in all of them, curtly and rudely." And then it worsened.
"Ron essentially took over my job ... without officially notifying me of this in writing ... without documenting why I was not doing a good job ..." He brought her into his office and screamed at her for an email she sent to the monument's partner organizations, so abusively it made her cry. On another occasion, "Ron shut the door and sat down. He was clearly very angry, almost ready to burst at the seams. His tone and demeanor were constricted and strained and he was clearly holding back extreme anger, at least at first." He accused Marlene of leaking internal information, which she hadn't done. "He adopted the tone of an angry father talking to a child. I told him that wasn't what happened ... He kept saying, 'Did you hear what I said?' ... I felt like a bully had just beaten me up."
One night, after a meeting at which Ron and Marlene were the last to leave, Marlene followed him out in her car. He stopped his truck on the narrow, deserted road. The road was lined by fences. His truck blocked any exit. He got out of the truck. "Ron walked up to my vehicle. He was clearly angry, strained, and very terse." He threatened to reprimand her and said that "'I brought this on myself,' and that he would take care of this when 'he was good and ready.'"
Marlene, desperate, turned to a federal employees' advocacy group. They told her there was nothing they could do. She consulted an attorney, who also said there was no legal remedy for her situation. She was not being sexually harassed and there wasn't a clear case for sex discrimination. There were no other employees who were the objects of his abusive behavior, and of two other supervisors, one was currying favor with her boss by also throwing tantrums and screaming at her.
After serving a five-day suspension without pay for the email she wrote, her perfect employment record was now stained. She appealed and lost. On April 27, 2005 she received two memos from her boss threatening her with more disciplinary action. Her career, she realized, was over. She would lose her job with the federal government and her home.
Had there been a law like SB 371 in California where Marlene lived, she almost certainly would have used it. What her boss did was "with malice." He meant to ruin her. He refused to help her transfer or give her a letter of recommendation for another job, but he wanted her gone. For whatever reason, he singled her out. He intimidated her verbally and physically on many occasions. One of her colleagues from a partner organization noticed and told people in her group this was like witnessing spousal abuse. Marlene said it was worse than being married to her alcoholic ex-husband.
A law like SB 371 would have protected Marlene. In an internal federal report, the government acknowledged that bad management was to blame, though it fell short of recognizing the situation for what it was-malicious abuse. Marlene's boss has since been reassigned.
SB 371 has safeguards to make sure employers are not unfairly accused. One cannot sue unless one avails herself or himself of opportunities to fix the situation in the workplace, as Marlene did by appealing her suspension and seeking help in human resources. One bad day with the boss won't be the grounds for a lawsuit. It took 13 months of growing, regular abuse before Marlene ended her misery. Connecticut should pass the Workplace Safety Act. Men and women who suffer intimidation and threatening behavior need protection, and they don't have it now. Let our state be the first.
The copy of Hermes' Op-Ed that ran in the Courant on April 20, 2007
The 2007 Connecticut Senate Bill SB 371, which died in the Judiciary Committee
Kathy Hermes is the WBI/BullyBusters Connecticut State Coordinator to enact anti-bullying legislation in her state
Hartford Courant article regarding SB 371, March 10, 2007