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e-workers
This page considers bullying in the electronic workplace.
It covers -
introduction
Contrary to the utopianism of digital 'end of history'
zealots such as George Gilder and Clay Shirky, bullying
is not a steam-age artefact that is necessarily absent
from the digital workplace.
Its persistence is unsurprising when you consider that
-
- bullying
involves an abuse of power and authority, attributes
that are present in most relationships
- bullying
may involve threat, humiliation and control rather than
physical assault
- many
people continue to work in manual trades (plumbing,
roofing, as butchers or dentists) rather than behind
a computer
- digital
technologies such as SMS,
mobile phone calls
and email provide
individual bullies or mobs to exercise dominance and
inflict pain on their targets.
Preceding
pages have noted disagreements about the conceptualisation
of bullying, evident in the apparent indifference of some
industries and organisations to bullying per se
or to particular types of bullying.
The workplace culture in many organisations still features
what has been valorised as 'rites of passage', attributable
to corporate or professional history ("it's always
been done this way"), to a projection by the perpetrator
of their machismo or power (women, as case law amply demonstrates,
on occasion bully male and female colleagues) and to collective
identity (reaffirmed by discriminatory
targeting those who are different or minorities).
Bullying may reflect an organisation's industrial discipline,
from tacit expectations about clothing and hairstyle or
participation in 'teambuilding' through to the keystroke
monitoring and other control mechanisms discussed here.
Bullying - or what some employees perceive as bullying
- may be an integral part of the organisation's coercive
management style, or something that simply is not recognised
by managers when occurring between employees in "crew-cut
& can do" organisations whose culture has a military
flavour (eg many large IT businesses).
That coercive style may be a feature of activity by union
representatives, an issue highlighted for example in Spelleken
v Darling Downs Foods [2002] QIRComm 168. Bullying
may be about the perpetrator's self-validation - "real
men are tough", 'real nuns hurt you for your own
good'. It may also involve a colleague's assimilation
of those values, which include not rocking the boat or
simply avoiding becoming a target.
Disagreement also reflects the way that bullying is expressed
in the workplace.
You would not, for example, expect novices in white collar
occupations to be involuntarily shaved and coated in sump
oil, or locked in toilet cubicles that are then set on
fire in what some perpetrators and their targets describe
as "hi-jinks". The 'death by a thousand keystrokes'
experienced by targets in many offices does not involve
physical assault but may however be just as destructive
of the person's health and spirits, leading some observers
to question a sharp differentiation between "workplace
violence" and "workplace bullying" (particularly
if only the former is considered worthy of legal recognition).
Context can matter. Submissions to the 2001 Queensland
Government's Taskforce on Workplace Bullying characterised
bullying as including -
-
disrespectful, foul and personally-abusive language
- repeated
threats of dismissal, demotion or redeployment
- humiliating
and demanding conduct in front of colleagues
- constant
(especially unjustified) criticism by supervisers or
peers
- being
given meaningless tasks
- confusing
and contradictory instructions (or constantly changing
instructions)
- action
aimed at undermining an individual's work performance,
including withholding information, restricting access
to equipment, hiding tools or delaying receipt of documents
- isolating
and excluding the target from work and team social activities
- leaving
offensive messages on voicemail or by email
- blocking
an employee's promotion
- overloading
the target with work or setting impossible deadlines.
Other
reports have noted that workplace bullying includes -
-
theft of or damage to the target's property, including
clothing, food, equipment and vehicles
- graffiti
in/around work areas that is specific to the individual
or that vilifies a class of people
- display
of offensive posters or other images in changerooms,
common areas, workstations and on monitors
- engaging
in identity theft by
signing the target up to adult
content email services
- physical
assault of (or threats to assault) the target or the
target's family and associates.
As
highlighted earlier in this note, workplace bullying does
not include -
- reasonable
supervisory practices
- reasonable
work performance appraisal, counselling and disciplinary
practices
- establishment,
articulation and implementation of reasonable workplace
goals, deadlines and standards
- what
one writer dubbed "fair and legitimate exhortation"
by managers or peers for employees "to give of
your best"
-
one-off incidents, such as swearing after jamming your
hand in the filing cabinet
and
more broadly reasonable behaviour that does not break
any law.
online
Unsurprisingly, digital bullying in the workplace does
not differ enormously from nastiness in the playground.
It represents an extension of traditional workplace bullying
rather than some that is qualitatively different in terms
of motivation or impact.
Reports on particular incidents thus encompass -
- identifiable
or pseudonymous email and SMS communications to an individual's
work phone or email address (or to a private address/phone)
that feature personal threats or dismissive comments
- communications
that feature offensive content such as erotic images
or jokes about ethnicity, religious affiliation or sexual
preference
- messages
that are ostensibly aimed at correcting an individual
or providing feedback but are copied to a group and
thus have the effect of publicly shaming or denigrating
the person
- negative
characterisations of the individual on workplace blogs
and personal blogs
- use
of email and SMS to load the individual or a group with
additional tasks, often frivolous and often out of work
hours, reducing the recipient's personal time and eroding
the recipient's autonomy (as they are 'on call' 24/7)
- sharing
of images that have been manipulated to depict an individual
in a way that is humiliating or otherwise offensive,
eg where an image of person's face has been pasted into
a pornographic image or where a portrait has been decorated
with a dunce's cap, a noose or a swastika
- display
of screensavers that feature offensive content, the
digital equivalent of the 'girlie calendar' or pin-up
encountered in many macho environments (auto workshops,
financial trading floors) prior to anti-discrimination
legislation.
business
Life in some workplaces is distinctly Hobbesian, with
a persistence of homosocial initiation rituals that feature
beating, probing and rolling. In Blenner-Hassett v
Murray Goulburn Co-Operative (PDF)
for example workplace hazing was reflected in the claim
that -
-
the Plaintiff's clothes were forcibly removed and grease
was applied to his genitals;
-
grey paste known as anti-grease was placed in his hard-hat
without his knowledge so that his hair was covered with
the paste;
-
he was hung from a safety-harness;
-
paint was put in his hair;
-
he was told to, and did, bring cake to work under threat
of having a grease-gun put up his anus if he failed
to do so;
-
he was put in a 44 gallon drum and rolled around the
workshop;
- he
was pinned by having his overalls put in a vice and
his overalls were nailed to a bench;
- he
witnessed a work experience employee being hung up from
a safety harness and having a fire lit underneath him;
- he
was threatened with physical harm if he told what was
happening;
-
he was frequently taunted about his lack of knowledge
and competence
Bullying
may of course include mistreatment by customers, with
courts in a number of cases finding that employers failed
to protect hospitality and other staff from racist, sexist
or other abuse by people on the other side of the counter.
government
Government agencies are organisations and are therefore
not free of bullying, despite notions that an emphasis
on exemplary human resource practice and the availability
of grievance resolution or whistleblowing
mechanisms will minimise malpractice.
One report for example suggests that 17% of Australian
federal government employees report that they are or have
been bullied during the course of their official employment,
a strikingly higher percentage that the <1% assumed
by senior executives. The size of the figure - consistent
with data from comparable overseas governments - may reflect
definitional problems or may instead reflect perceptions
among the bullied that they can speak out, in contrast
to the 'grit your teeth and bear it' ethos evident in
most military organisations.
A 2005 report by the Victorian State Services Authority,
People Matter, indicated that over 20% of state
public servants experienced bullying in the workplace
in the twelve months prior to the survey. The impact of
that bullying is unclear, with some targets being distressed
(or feisty) enough to resort to formal grievance mechanisms
and even litigation whereas other targets shrug off misbehaviour
by bosses/peers as an irritation or "just part of
the job".
not for profit sector
Bullying is not restricted to commercial entities or schoolyards:
observers have commented that some of the nastiest mobbing
and victimisation by individuals involves higher education,
arts and philanthropic institutions.
next page (Australian
bullying law)
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