Bills to combat workplace bullies gaining traction
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Kathie Gant knew the relationship with her new boss was bad, but she didn't know how bad until the woman, a Maryland attorney, hurled a bundle of pencils at Ms. Gant, her administrative assistant. "You just don't sharpen my pencils for me!" the boss raged, punctuating each word with exaggerated enunciation and the zing of a pencil across the office toward Ms. Gant.
Months later, Ms. Gant was in a closet in the courthouse where she worked when the lights were shut off. "I turned toward the door and she was standing there," Ms. Gant said of the supervisor. "I tried to say 'Hey, I'm in here!'" Her boss stared back, shut the door, and locked it from the outside, trapping Ms. Gant in the pitch-black space.
After months of taunts and needling by her boss, Ms. Gant said she ended up on a psychiatrist's couch and nearly in a psych ward.
With a quavering voice and tearful demeanor, Ms. Gant testified about her job situation during a legislative hearing this month at the state Capitol as Maryland became one of the latest states to consider legislation against workplace bullying. She recounted some details later in an interview.
Progress has been slow since California in 2003 became the first state to introduce a "Healthy Workplace Bill," which would give employees legal protection against those they say torment them at work (The measure died in committee). Since then, 19 other states have proposed similar legislation, though none has passed it into law.
David C. Yamada, a law professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston and the author of the Healthy Workplace Bill, said laws protect workers from abuse only on the basis of such things as race or religion. Employees who do not fall into a protected category have no legal means of fighting bullying.
Opponents of legislation say employees already are protected by anti-discrimination laws and workplace rules against abusive behavior. They also say that human resources departments exist to help employees deal with workplace problems.
If all else fails, bullied workers can bypass their bosses and seek help from higher-ranking supervisors, said Champe McCulloch, president of the Maryland Association of General Contractors and a former human resources director at Verizon.
"There's always an internal appeals process," said Mr. McCulloch, one of three lobbyists to speak against the bill on March 3 when it was introduced to the state Senate's finance committee. "At some point, the employee has to screw his or her courage to the sticking post and keep escalating the complaint up the management chain. I assure you ... at the senior management ranks, somebody is going to take action."
First Published March 27, 2011 5:25 pm
