1. Lobby Days III OutcomeNews from Albany The Healthy Workplace Bill A10291 is alive and well in New York State. Downstate Coordinator, Tom Witt, visited the offices of six New York State senators on Wednesday June 11, 2008 seeking a senate primary sponsor for a companion bill to the assembly's Healthy Workplace Bill A10291. When Tom first arrived in the Legislative Office Building, he ran into Assemblyman Bob Barra, co-sponsor of A10291, and promised to provide the assemblyman with an update at the end of the day on any new developments resulting from the day's lobbying efforts. 

The legislature was in session, so Tom met with legislative aides rather than the senators themselves.  He met with: Steve Guerin (representing Senator Caesar Trunzo), John Kraigenow (representing Senator Ken LaValle), Tucker Reeks (representing Senator Thomas Libous), Susan Zimmer (representing Senator John Flanagan), Charles Silverstein (representing Senator Owen Johnson) and Matt Andrus (representing Senator Jim Alesi).

April 28, 2008 was the last day of unlimited bill introduction in the New York State Senate.  After that date, each senator is limited to introducing a maximum of just 10 more bills through the end of session, which is June 23, 2008 this year.  Each senator's 10 bills may or may not be already accounted for at this time.  In any event, even if a primary sponsor does not step forward before the end of this legislative session, the office visits may still possibly result in sponsorship of a companion bill during the next session in January. The meetings all went very well.  Senators Flanagan and LaValle both represent portions of the district represented by Assemblyman Steve Englebright, who is the primary sponsor of A10291, possibly making those particular visits especially worthwhile. In the afternoon, Tom ran across Assemblyman Joe Saladino while walking past his office and the assemblyman filled out a slip in Tom's presence that will make him the eleventh assemblymember to sponsor A10291 in this session! Tom also spoke with several legislative aides that he has met in past visits to Albany. The day ended with a visit to Assemblyman Steve Engelbright's office and to Assemblyman Bob Barra's office to provide an update on the days activities to the staff there. 

To make this lobbying effort stronger, please take the time to send a letter to each of the six senators whose offices were visited on June 11, 2008, thanking them for scheduling the appointment with Tom Witt of the New York Healthy Workplace Advocates and asking them to consider primary sponsorship of a companion bill to the Healthy Workplace Bill A10291.

The addresses are as follows:

Senator James S. Alesi LOB 905 Albany, NY 12247 518-455-2015

District Office 220 Packetts Landing Fairport, NY 14450 (585) 223-1800

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Senator John Flanagan LOB 817 Albany , NY 12247 518-455-2071

District Office 260 Middle Country Road Suite 203 Smithtown , NY 11787 631-361-2154

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Senator Owen Johnson LOB 913 Albany, NY 12247

District Office 23-24 Argyle Square Babylon, NY 11702 (631) 669-9200

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Senator Kenneth LaValle LOB 806 Albany , NY 12247 518-455-3121

District Office 325 Middle county Road Suite 4 Selden , NY 11784 631-696-6900

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Senator Thomas Libous 512 LOB Albany, NY 12247 518-455-2677

District Office 1607 State Office Building 44 Hawley Street Binghamton, NY 13901

and

Broome: (607) 773-8771 Tioga: (607) 687-3399

Chenango: (607) 336-3401

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Senator Caesar Trunzo LOB 711 Albany, NY 12247 518-455-2111

District Office NYS Office Building, Veterans’ Memorial Highway Hauppauge, NY 11788 (631) 360-3236

And if you can, please also send a letter to Assemblyman Joe Saladino for agreeing to add his name as a sponsor of A10291 before this session ends on June 23rd. Assemblyman Joseph Saladino LOB 722 Albany , NY 12248 518-455-5305 District Office 200 Boundary Avenue Massapequa, NY 11758516-844-0635

2. 6th International Conference on Workplace Bullying

The 6th International Conference on Workplace Bullying in Montreal was a wonderful opportunity to network with researchers, clinicians and others on what is taking place on this issue worldwide.  This was the first time the conference was held in North America and NYHWA learned a lot about what we can expect in the years to come on this issue from our European colleagues as they are estimated to be 10-20 years ahead of us in the states on this topic.   

Dr. Gary Namie (Workplace Bullying Institute) and Mike Schlicht (New York Healthy Workplace Advocates) presided over a presentation on "The U.S. Campaign for Workplace Bullying Laws" on the second day of the conference.  The session was well attended by colleagues from Europe, Asia and North America.  A history of how the U.S. Campaign came to be was presented by Dr. Namie and how the consortium of grass root organizations have generated dozens of Bills to date, spawned support from over one-hundred state legislators across the country, multiple unions and thousands of interest articles by the media on the topic.  Mike presented an overview on how the legislative effort in New York State came to be, and how we have progressed from a “study bill” to the 2008 Healthy Workplace Bill (A10291) that now has twelve sponsors with more expected.   

A number of keynote conferences took place during the three days and some of them really look at this issue in some new lights.  Several in particular are mentioned below.

Ostracism – Kipling D. Williams from Purdue University presented an interesting study on ostracism.  In its simplest form, ostracism is simply to ignore or exclude a person from an action.  As we know from workplace bullying, we have come to use the term physical and/or social isolation in place of the word ostracism.  Kipling spoke about how this tactic is used by workplace bullies and employers in a variety of situations.  A real life case was presented by Kipling where a woman called “Sue” was talking to another female coworker next to a file cabinet when “Jane” walked by and at the right moment Jane pulled the cabinet door into the path of Sue causing an injury.  What you may think is that “Jane” was the bullying when in fact it was “Sue.”  In this real life case every time Sue came into a room where Jane was talking to another employee, Jane would stop the conversation until Sue left the room.  While this action seems innocuous at first, as we know from workplace bullying, it is an accumulation of acts that (in most cases) that build up to affect the persons health and well-being.  After months of taking this abuse from Sue and speaking to her employer on the issue without success, Jane’s frustration got the best of her and she took the action to pull the cabinet door into the pathway of Sue.  Sadly, Jane was fired for her actions and Sue continued her employment without any repercussions for her actions.   What Kipling found after participants took part in his research on ostracism is that they would have rather been beaten with a stick instead of being ostracized as one can see the bruises of the action.  With ostracism, bruises are psychological in nature and is very well aligned with workplace bullying and the psychological abuse of targets.  The subtle actions of ostracism, like workplace bullying, accumulate to take a toll on a person’s mental and physical health.

Marie-France Hirigoyen was the final keynote speaker of the conference on Friday afternoon and her presentation closely allied itself with the presentation on the outcome of ostracism in society. Her study and resulting paper was based on the increased frequency of suicides in France due to stress and workplace bullying occurring in the workplace.  In the French workplace, ostracism is in part caused by the use of electronic technology that is replacing more meaningful and acknowledging facial contact.  People in any society need to be recognized to exist in the workplace and this is one of the ways it is believed that is causing French targets of workplace bullying to commit suicide.  French employees are being dismissed from recognition by workplace bullies causing them prolonged psychological harm that suicide is left as their only outcome.  French employers have instituted stress programs to deal with what they perceive as the  issue, and are ignoring the issue that workplace bullying is the underlying cause. 

This practice according to Marie-France Hirigoyen has led to a French society to take medication to “survive” the French workplace.  This has led to a significant impact on the health care system, family relationships and satisfying relationships.  We have seen first-hand in the U.S. workplace that workplace bullying impacts these same systems and generates millions of dollars in associated societal costs.  In the French workplace, this has been more dramatic as the birth rate has fallen below the death rate, which in part is being linked, to the use of antidepressants.  According to Marie-France, antidepressants are depressing the sex life of the French, leading people to become asexual and continue the downward spiral of French society.  Her suggestions to resolve the situation are very realistic and practical.  First, bring back the human aspect and conflict management into the workplace and second, to educate business schools that people are not objects and that perversion (defined by Marie-France as people to be used as objects and thrown away) needs to be discarded as a business tactic.   

In our next update, we will write about Pam Lutgen-Sandvik and her presentation on Workplace Bullying in the United States: Prevalence, Resistance and Emotions.  North Americans will be proud to learn that Pam was elected at the conference to serve on the international panel for workplace bullying and is the first North American representative to hold such a position.  NYHWA looks forward to Pam’s continued research and contributions to the U.S. and her representation on the worldwide stage of workplace bullying!  

3. Upcoming Meetings 

In July NYHWA will be meeting with two organizations in the Buffalo, New York area.  The first is the Coalition of Economic Justice to provide an update on our legislation and is where we first met the NYS AFL-CIO that later supported the study bill’s via active lobbying.  The Coalition of Economic Justice is an organization made up of religious organizations and unions that support the living wage campaign.   

The second meeting is with the Theatre of Change that acts out workplace situations such as sexual harassment and diversity in the workplace to educate employers on how these activities take place in the working environment and how they affect moral and the health of employees.