In
a new Labor Day 2008 study conducted by the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI), bullied workers report that employers predominantly
do nothing to stop the mistreatment when reported (53%). Employers actually retaliated against the person (in 71% of cases)
who dared to report it.
Four hundred (400) respondents completed an online Employer Response survey at
the WBI website, a self-selected sample. In 2007, WBI wrote, and Zogby International conducted, the first scientific U.S.
survey of workplace bullying.
With 7,740 respondents, the WBI-Zogby poll found that 37% of the workforce
directly experienced mistreatment characterized as either verbal abuse, threats, intimidation, humiliation or sabotage of
work. An additional 12% of adult Americans witnessed bullying at work. It was shown to be undeniably common.
According
to the 2008 WBI survey using the same definition, in 40% of cases, targets considered the employer's "investigation"
to be inadequate or unfair with less than 2% of investigations described as fair and safe for the bullied person. Filing complaints
led to retaliation by employers of bullied targets leading to lost jobs (24%). Alleged bullies were punished in only 6.2%
of cases. Bullying is done with impunity.
The online Co-Worker Response survey of 400 different respondents
found that coworkers were nearly as unhelpful as employers. In 46% of bullying cases, coworkers abandoned their bullied colleagues,
to the extent that 15% aggressed against the target along with the bully. Coworkers did nothing in 16% of cases. They took
positive steps 36% of the time -- limited to offering moral support. The rarest outcome (less than 1%) was for coworkers to
band together to stop the bullying through confrontation. Coworkers' personal fears were the preferred explanation (55%) by
bullied targets for the actions taken or not taken by witnesses.
"Despite recent major business headlines (Wall Street Journal: Lawyers & employers take fight
to bullies ; Business Week: Employers can't ignore
workplace bullying), and the costs associated with bullying, it is obviously going to take the passage of anti-bullying laws
to get employers to take bullying seriously," speculates Gary Namie, WBI Director.
The WBI-Legislative Campaign is responsible for the introduction of the anit-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill in 13 states
since 2003. Coordinators are active in 21 states and one Canadian province. Results found at: http://bullyinginstitute.org/wbi2008.html
