From the ADN: Employers need to start thinking of domestic violence and sexual assault as a personnel matter, not merely as a personal problem, Gov. Sean Parnell said Monday in calling on Alaska businesses to join his fight to end the scourge over the next decade.
In a speech to the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, Parnell said victims bear the ultimate cost of violence. But he cited national statistics showing that domestic violence costs victims and employers nearly $19 billion a year, including such things as lost productivity, sick leave, unexplained absences and medical care.
Workplace bullying is a type of psychological trauma which can be psychological or physical comes at an even higher cost to businesses. It is also a high cost to society. The audience Parnell spoke to are themselves the perpetrators of this type of violence. It is often a part of their culture and sanctioned from high up. Highly experienced and educated employees are completely taken out of the workforce and end up on disability from the psychological damage. Why did Governor Parnell not even mention workplace bullying which is endemic in Alaska and has resulted in violence such as shootings and psychological trauma such as the PTSD I have from workplace bullying at a health care facility in bush Alaska? The Republican war on the middle class has a lot to do with that.
The “lost productivity, sick leave, unexplained absences and medical care“ caused by workplace bullies is then used as an excuse for more workplace bullying often facilitated by Human Resources departments. Workplace bullying causes devastating physical health problems which can result in death. The victims of workplace bullying also “bear the ultimate cost of violence” because they often loose their jobs, references for another job, their mental health, their ability to trust people, and friends, because people don’t understand workplace bullying and blame the victim. Victims of domestic violence get sympathy and help, victims of workplace bullying get shunned by coworkers, blamed, called crazy and sometimes as in my case mobbed in the community due to false rumors spread by the serial workplace bullies and their second tier sycophants. This is a form of workplace violence that is legal and Alaska is doing nothing about it. Targets of workplace bullying often become suicidal, become chemically dependent, get divorced, or commit crimes they are arrested for when they have a psychotic break or nervous breakdown from the PTSD (just like soldiers do).
Workplace bullying is very similar to domestic violence, especially the psychological factor. The research shows the psychological abuse is much more damaging than the physical abuse. None of these types of violence have just recently just started happening nor are they invisible.
With workplace bullying there is no support because even the mental health practitioners in Alaska known nothing about it. The victim is blamed, making them sicker, if they loose it and do something to get arrested they are then incarcerated which makes them much sicker due to the abuses in the prisons. The court system does not allow the target to even discuss the psychological violence they have suffered, my case proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Having to deal with the injustice and prosecutorial misconduct that goes on in this state makes defendants very ill to begin with.
It is also very psychologically damaging to be abused and harmed while the abusers have no consequences, then when you become mentally ill and get arrested you are severely punished. I suffered for a long time before I lost it and got charged with felonies. No one should have to be tortured until they are that mentally disturbed just for trying to do their job. I have been a victim of domestic violence and I was also gang raped (by 8 men) and got over that fairly quickly, but I will never get over workplace bullying, the abuse I received at the hands of several government agencies in Alaska (which is ongoing, BTW), especially the abuse from the department of corrections and justice system. Workplace bullying causes layer upon layer of trauma, especially when the justice system is involved. The ignorance in the justice system in Alaska causes great harm.
Justice in Alaska is only for the elite and wealthy. People who work for a living are not in those categories. Unions were in place to protect employees from all kinds of abuses, but for the most part have been systematically destroyed over several decades. Governor Parnell, Dan Sullivan nor the Chamber of Commerce don’t give a rats ass about employees who suffer any kind of abuse. Get real!
Alaska is just now addressing violence and abuse in the workplace from domestic violence while the rest of the country having dealt with that issue a long time ago moves on to workplace bullying. It’s like living in the 1980s up here. They haven’t decided to do something about violence against women because it is the morally right thing to do, it is because they were shamed into it by the horrible statistics about Alaska.
From KREM:
Workplace bullying would be declared an unfair practice in Washington under legislation introduced by state Sen. Nick Harper of Everett.
The Olympian reports the state Civil Rights Commission would investigate complaints of an abusive work environment.
Employees who have been harmed psychologically, physically or economically would have legal recourse.
Abusive conduct is defined as behavior that a reasonable person would find hostile, offensive and unrelated to legitimate business interests.
A companion bill has been introduced in the House by Rep. Mark Liias of Mukilteo.
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