Workplace Bullying At Non-Profit Organization

by Wanda
(Dunsmuir, CA)

I have worked for a WIA nonprofit organization for over 11 years. The first year I was promoted and everything went well until in 2002 the Executive Director quit and the board appointed the Fiscal Manager as Executive Director.

This ED accused me of harassment and gave me a 18 month reprimand in my personnel file. I worked in a satellite office from 2004 until 2007 with no problems. Then because of a citation on my driving record, they insisted that the only job that I could qualify for was the Receptionist in the main office, the job I started with back in 1999. With the demotion, I took along two duties that I was assigned while working at a Technician. Which after a meeting with management and the union representative only to be denied any compensation, I declined to the the duties that I had been doing since my demotion in March of 2007.

Even though I was told that the Receptionist was the only position that I was qualified for, my Supervisor offered me a Technician position in November of 2007 (similar to the position I had held before demotion) but would not give me any raise or other compensation, so I declined the position.

I was given additional duties that were not on my position description, preparing the accounts payable. Then also was given a duty from the Employer Technician of checking time sheets and entering on a payroll sheet. This was expanded to do a youth Green Job program with 62 participants. The time sheets that came to me had errors in calculation of hours and overtime. I did the Green Job payroll two times by myself and had only one error, where I was returning 16 or so time sheets back person calculating the hours for corrections.

The Executive Director invited all staff to bring any concerns to her, so I did, with proof of the excellent job I had done on the corrections of the time sheets and accounts payable.

The Executive Director retaliated against me by accusing me of breach of confidentiality, asked to resign, or a letter of commitment. Later that same day, I was called into the Executive Director's office and the duty of doing the accounts payable was taken away from me after two years.

The union representative that I was working with to respond got injured and the response letter was delayed, so the management came in on a Saturday and went through my personal belongings and the computer. Our personnel policies state that no personal information be on the computer, recently when we had a system update, the Administrative Specialist came around to all employees to show them where to put their personal files, so that they are not deleted. Even though, I was terminated over the phone, on Saturday.

But that was still not enough, I was prohibited from gathering my personal belongings, then sent a certified letter threatening to throw out my personal belongings and insisting that I cash my check immediately or they would cancel them and turn over to the Labor Bureau.

Worked for the organization for 11 years, but the last six were miserable, management continued to upgrade positions within the organization, while keeping me down, until I was the lowest paid employee in the organization.