Mobbing: Death by a Thousand Cuts
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By Doug Ball
An above-average worker, who doesn't cause
any trouble, is reliable, and does her job well,
suddenly begins to cry uncontrollably one day at work.
She's taken to the hospital, where she's diagnosed
with clinical depression, a result of too much stress
at work.
What's going on? What kind of stress does this?
We all want satisfying jobs in workplaces that are
safe and relatively peaceful. We don't want to be
attacked, humiliated, or singled out for ridicule.
Yet that's exactly what is happening to many workers—even
in workplaces where you would least expect it. It
happens in buttoned-down corporate offices, even those
with strong sexual harassment policies in place. It
happens in politically correct universities, where
posters from watchdog student body organizations fiercely
proclaim they're on guard against any form of discrimination.
It even happens in police forces, schools, hospitals,
government offices, and union shops—work environments
considered safe and protected.
In workplaces across Canada and around the world,
incidences of bullying, mobbing, and violence are
on the increase. A survey conducted by the International
Labour Organization showed that, along with France,
Argentina, Romania, and England, Canada has one of
the highest rates of assault and sexual harassment
on the job. The Workers' Health and Safety Centre
of Ontario confirms that assessment. In 2002 in Ontario
alone, lost-time claims for injuries from assaults
and other violent acts increased ten to 15 percent
over each of the previous six years.
Bullying, mobbing, harassment, assault: they all
arise from dark impulses buried deep in human nature.
Laws alone are unlikely to make them go away. If we
wish to maintain a civil society, and if we believe
that God-given values of human dignity, brotherhood,
and respect are right, then we need to speak up in
order to counter brutish and uncivil behaviour. But
even so, for the health and safety of workers, we
need sharper legislative teeth against it in labour
standards. We need unions to write anti-bullying policies
into contracts and press hard for their enforcement.
And where no such measures are available, we need
to resist the bully and abstain from joining in the
mob. That's easier said than done.
Not infrequently,
mobbing spelled the end of the target's career, marriage,
health, and livelihood. (In Sweden, it's been estimated
that) about 12 percent of people who take their own
lives have recently been mobbed at work.
Most of us instinctively know what bulling is and
have probably experienced some of it in our working
lives. It's that loud-mouth boor who yells and screams
and swears to make a point. You're the low-life, and
you'd better get working harder or you will soon feel
the door hitting you on the way out. The bully is
usually insecure and takes it out on everyone else.
In the workplace, he or she is not always the boss,
but most often is—about 80 percent of the time.
Sometimes, bullying can lead to violence—with
tragic consequences. "Going postal," although
rare, grabs the headlines, the violence often attributed
to bullying, as in Pierre Lebrun's case.
Lebrun worked at OC Transpo, Ottawa's public transit
company. He stuttered badly. Cruel teasing and ridicule
from his co-workers rained on him without letup. Finally,
in retaliation, he slapped one of his tormentors.
He was forced to apologize—a further humiliation.
Later, after he had been let go, Lebrun snapped and
returned to his workplace, killing four employees
and then himself. Although the media said that he
had suffered bullying at work, the subsequent inquest
determined that he was the victim of mobbing.
Until the Lebrun episode, mobbing had not received
as much attention in Canada as it had in Europe, according
to Kenneth Westhues, a sociologist at the University
of Waterloo. He describes the phenomenon of mobbing
as an impassioned, collective campaign by co-workers
to exclude punish and humiliate a targeted worker.
Initiated most often by a person in position of power
or influence, mobbing is a desperate urge to crush
and eliminate the target. The urge travels through
the workplace like a virus, infecting one person after
another. The target comes to be viewed as absolutely
abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities, outside the
circle of acceptance and respectability deserving
only contempt. As the campaign proceeds, a steadily
larger range of hostile ploys and communications come
to be seen as legitimate … . Not infrequently,
mobbing spelled the end of the target's career, marriage,
health, and livelihood. (In Sweden, it's been estimated
that) about 12 percent of people who take their own
lives have recently been mobbed at work.
To understand mobbing, let's return for a moment
to the sobbing worker who landed in the hospital,
suffering from clinical depression. A few years prior,
she had sustained a crippling injury at work. By law,
her employer had a duty to accommodate her, so she
was assigned different and—as some of her co-workers
felt—easier duties. They didn't like that.
She was also a visible minority in a workplace filled
with minorities of one kind or another. But she was
the only one of this kind. They didn't like that either.
So she kept her head down and did her work well.
She didn't strike up conversations readily, being
uncomfortable with her co-workers' rough and tumble
and highly sexualized talk. She's too quiet, too "snobbish,"
some judged, and she soon became the target of their
rants. Others also didn't like her, and the developing
mob picked on her mercilessly. The bullies among them
had a field day tormenting her, having been given
permission, in effect, by the rest of the mob. They
wanted to get rid of her, get her fired.
After a particularly humiliating episode, she broke
down completely and landed in the hospital, diagnosed
with depression. A few days later, this shy woman,
only in her 30s, suffered a stress-induced heart attack.
This true story, told by Westhues, demonstrates just
how destructive mobbing and bullying can be. See
full story here. Victims of the mob's attention
suffer death by a thousand cuts. A survey of bullied
persons in the United States showed that they suffered
severe anxiety (76 percent), disrupted sleep (71 percent),
loss of concentration (71 percent), clinical depression
(39 percent), and panic attacks (32 percent), among
others. Cardiovascular stress-related complications
were not uncommon.
In jurisdictions around the world, bullying/mobbing
is being taken seriously as a costly health and safety
issue. Many countries in Europe, as well as Australia,
have implemented legal remedies.
In 2002, Quebec amended its labour standards act
to provide some protection against bullying. For the
first time in Canada, "psychological harassment,"
defined as "vexatious behaviour in the form of
repeated and hostile or unwanted conduct that affects
an employee's psychological or physical integrity,"
is prohibited.
Federally, a similar attempt was made in September
2003 to change the Canada Labour code to "prohibit
acts of psychological harassment." Diane Bourgeois,
a Bloc Quebecois MP, introduced a private member's
bill (C-451) which, ultimately, did not become law.
However, given its importance, this issue is likely
to resurface.
Federal and provincial human rights codes already
protect workers from discriminatory harassment on
specific grounds—race, ancestry, place of origin,
colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, age, record
of offences, marital status, family status, sexual
orientation, or handicap. If you are being harassed
on one of these grounds, you can complain to the appropriate
provincial human rights commission. But what if you
don't qualify on one of these grounds?
There are ways that workers, employers, and unions
can cooperate to target bullying/mobbing behaviour.
Every worker at every level must take an interest
in creating and maintaining a peaceful workplace.
Of first importance is education—especially
about mobbing. Most people understand bullying and
can identify it quickly; few appreciate the mob's
subtle attractions that draw even the level-headed.
Seminars need to stress how to spot early indicators
of an emerging mob mentality, and then provide the
tools to squash its development.
Employers have a number of options.
They can clearly define bullying/mobbing and promote
policies aimed at reducing these behaviours. They
can outline a process for
handling complaints and specify the penalties
bullies and mob participants can expect. And they
can advertise a strong no-retaliation policy to protect
those who come forward.
Unions can be as oblivious to bullying aggression
or mobbing incidents as anyone else. But they can
still work to include clear anti-bullying/mobbing
language in their contracts, along with reporting
systems, adjudicating procedures, training for
supervisors and union representatives, and general
education for their members.
Few of us can withstand the stress of continued derision
and humiliation from bosses—not to mention from
large numbers of co-workers. Who wouldn't want to
ensure a workplace free of such a toxic atmosphere?
Unions and employers can tackle this threat, even
before the law gets involved. Awareness and education
are the first steps. Now is the time they need to
act—before you or a co-worker become the next
victim.
Reprinted with permission. This
article first appeared in The Guide (September/October
2006), a publication of the Christian Labour Association
of Canada (CLAC).
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