Healthy Workplace Bill Anemic?

Clearly, the Workplace Bullying Institute and Dr. David Yamada have been instrumental in the mounting efforts to pass a state workplace anti-bullying bill.  However, the proposed Healthy Workplace Bill as drafted by Dr. Yamada and supported by the Workplace Bullying Institute is unnecessarily restrictive as outlined in the story below. It would require American workers who are targets of workplace bullying  to jump high hurdles that do not exist for workers in other countries. There is no valid reason to set the bar lower for  American workers. – PGB

Is the proposed Healthy Workplace Bill, which has been touted as model legislation to combat workplace bullying in the United States, as healthy as it should be for American workers?

This question was raised in a special issue of Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal entitled, The Law of Workplace Bullying: An International Overview, Volume 32, Number 1, Fall 2010. The Journal is a publication of the University of Illinois College of Law and The International Society for Labor Law and Social Security.

“It is of note that efforts to have legislation adopted in the Unites States seem to raise the bar far higher than would be acceptable in any of the other countries studied here,” says Professor Katherine Lippel, the editor of the issue and Canada Research Chair in Occupational Health and Safety Law, University of Ottawa, Canada,

The proposed Healthy Workplace Bill was drafted by Professor David Yamada of Suffolk University, Boston, MA,  founder of the New Workplace Institute, and is supported by the Workplace Bullying Institute founded by Gary and Ruth Namie.

Ms. Lippel said the proposed Healthy Workplace Bill contains restrictive requirements not found in other such laws around the world. Specifically, she cites its requirement that the Plaintiff show malicious intent to bully and provide evidence that he or she suffered tangible harm.

Here’s what Ms. Lippel has to say about the proposed requirement of proof of malicious intent:

“The requirement of malicious intention is of particular concern, and is not a requirement in the other legislation studied in this issue … Most legislation does not require evidence of the intention of the perpetrator of harassment (see for instance the interpretation and application of the legislation in France and Québec, and the Code of practice in Spain), and while malicious intent may lead to an increased award in Germany, evidence of intent is not required in the application of remedies provided for either in contract or tort liability contexts.”

Here’s what Ms. Lippel has to say about the proposed requirement of proof of tangible harm:

“Similarly, the proposed Healthy Worker Bill imposes an evidentiary requirement that has been critiqued as being “an over-high standard of severity,”…  requiring evidence of tangible harm to the plaintiff … It is understandable that the difficult context applicable in the United States with regard to rights of workers may favor a more restrictive legislative approach for purposes of political expediency, yet even some authors from the United States have expressed concern with the restrictive conditions proposed in the Healthy Workplace Bill.”

Ms. Lippel prefaces her remarks with the admonition that, “The actual content of the legislation on workplace bullying, if there is to be legislation, requires reflection.”

The issue may be available for perusal at your local law library. It can be found online at Lexis/Nexis, Westlaw, and HeinOnline. It is available for purchase ($10) at the journal’s web site: http://www.law.uiuc.edu/publications/cll&pj/contact.html

- by PGB