Saturday, January 18, 2014

2014 Legislative Session Begins Feb. 5: We Need a Healthy Workplace Bill in Connecticut!

Connecticut Healthy Workplace Advocates are an all-volunteer, grassroots group, and the Advocates support the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill. 

Please sign the petition linked below:

Current laws do not address workplace bullying/abusive conduct
•35% of adult Americans experience workplace bullying (WBI 2010 U.S. National Survey) That is approximately 54 million Americans! 
•Workplace bullying share similar characteristics to domestic violence
•Harm includes stress-related diseases (cardiovascular, immunological, gastrointestinal), plus anxiety, clinical depression and PTSD.
•Without laws, employers can legally ignore this abusive conduct, and do.

That's why I created a petition to The Connecticut State House, The Connecticut State Senate, and Governor Dan Malloy, which says:

"Support the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill, which creates a legal claim for targets of workplace bullying, mobbing, or other abusive conduct at work who can establish that they were subjected to malicious, health-harming behavior. It also provides defenses for employers who act preventatively and responsively with regard to bullying and includes provisions to discourage frivolous claims. 

Existing laws require harassment to be discriminatory. Either race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, marital status, sex, age, or sexual orientation is required to be illegal. Approximately two-thirds of all harassment is 'status-blind' and legal. In 1998, the Washington Post editorialized "what bothers people about abusive workplace conduct, after all, is not the fact that it may be discriminatory but that it is abusive in the first place." 

The Healthy Workplace Bill substitutes health-imp airment for discrimination, and extends protection to all employees, working for either public or private employers, regardless of protected group status, who seek redress for being subjected to an abusive work environment. It becomes unlawful to be subjected to another employee whose malicious conduct sabotages or undermines the targeted person's work performance. Furthermore, the bill holds the bullying employee directly liable for the unlawful employment practice and punishes retaliation of the complainant. 

Individual plaintiffs must rely solely on private attorneys. The State has no enforcement role. No government bureaucracy will be created or funded. Individuals may accept workers' compensation benefits in lieu of bringing action under this bill. 

The bill seeks to compel employer prevention through internal policies and enforcement. No new employer regulations are created. " 

Will you sign my petition? Click here to add your name: 

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/i-support-the-healthy-1?source=c.fwd&r_by=6902567 

Thanks! 

Kathy Hermes
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ConnecticutHealthyWorkplaceAdvocates
Facebook Closed Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cthwa/

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