pelican

Thats a whistle blower and yes they DO need a system and thee is none

We have more people crying discrimination- bullying . Its not our way but its creeping in. I agree with Anti 100% on this one.

$ waster

Dear Antiseptic,

I don't quite understand what your point is. Are you
suggesting that because of the ones that do abuse
the system - we don't have laws in place to protect
the genuine victims - or what are you offering that
we do about genuine victims? We all realise that people
do abuse all kinds of systems - that's human nature,
but what's your point then - what are you suggesting we
do about it - especially the genuine victims?

'Beats the hell out of me why adults aren't capable of dealing with bullying themselves'.

I was bullied in a workplace (public service) and boy, I tried to handle it myself. I approached the bully gently asking for reconciliation; I asked colleagues who witnessed it (and averted their eyes) for assistance - after all it was damaging the teamwork; I talked privately to more senior staff, and to the human resources people, and when all that failed, I documented the events in detail and finally made a formal complaint. I was attacked by management for having the temerity to put it in writing. The bully was supported by management and promoted. My contract was not extended and I was threatened with legal action if I said anything publicly. 'You just want to be a whistle-blower!' which was slightly contradicted by the efforts I had made to resolve it quietly.

I could see that if I took any more action, I would be the one whose name would be blackened, so I cut my losses and got on with my life. (Only one person actively helped me, a doctor who put it all into perspective and made me laugh about it; but my seeking help from him was actually held against me - proves you were the one with the 'problem'.)

I think bullying is pretty widespread and that many people just put up with it or get out. It's great that more people are taking action, it's a very brave thing to do (when you're bullied and no-one will help, it really knocks your self-confidence) especially when standing up and speaking out attracts accusations of grand-standing or being after money.

PS I am sure that my situation would have been assessed as a 'bogus claim' in an investigation: the management would have totally denied it, claimed I'd imagined it, or that it was my own fault, or I was mentally unbalanced etc etc. No-one would have validated my complaints, even though others witnessed the bullying.

Lexi, if there are less than 60 genuine bullying victims out of 6000 who made complaints then the problem is insignificant and at the risk of being accused of blaming the victim, I suspect that at least some of those were cases in which there was a personality clash and one of the parties should have simply found another job. It is impossible to legislate to make people like each other, nor is it possible to legislate to make people less sensitive to perceived slurs. It is certainly possible to legislate it a trivial matter to complain about such slurs though and that is what has happened here, with the results seen.

The next question is to do with what sort of bullying behaviour was determined to have occurred. If it was just a case of a boss being in a bad mood and saying something inappropriate then it's hardly especially serious and most bosses I've worked for would have done that any number of times.

I'd suggest that this constant growth of "zero tolerance" Nannyism has not lead to a reduction in anything, but has most certainly lead to an increase in the number of busybodies who earn a crust out of wagging their fingers.

In my view it's quite simply not in accordance with Australian values and not conducive to the creation of a society of mutual respect between its members. How can I respect you if I have to walk on eggshells around you for fear of being shopped to "The Authorities"? Do you reckon we could have a genuine discussion as peers about anything there's any controversy over?

Cossomby, see above. the fact that your co-workers took the other party's side would tend to indicate you simply weren't popular among that group, while your "bully" was. Ask yourself why that might be so.

Dear Lexi,
Bullying takes on many forms, the thing that I cannot come to terms with is that we hear Mothers of school kids who are bullied on facebook and mobile phones, and that 'something' should be done....the answer is both simple and obvious, turn the phone and the computer off, and/or change the phone number and get off facebook, do we really need to change peoples nappies for them?
But I acknowledge, as usual, yours and the rest of the posters thoughtful posts.
NSB