Tuesday, December 14th, 2004: Welcome to the reborn Bullybusters website! We began the Campaign Against Workplace Bullying in 1997. Since then, we've helped over 4,300 individuals Bullied at Work. We've conducted three waves of systematic research and published two books. In addition, the first U.S. Anti-Bullying Legislation was proposed because thanks to our network of Bullybusters!And according to the website, they hope to offer legislation in Washington, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, California. Three of those I can understand, but Oklahoma? Regular readers will know I have been keeping an eye on the advancement of arguments for a bullying cause of action, which already exists in Europe. I happened on the revised website, courtesy of a story in the Seattle Times, Bullying at work gains visibility which appears to be sourced by the Workplace Bullying and Trauma Worksite, a group apparently created by Drs. Gary and Ruth Namie, whose bios can be found at another of their websites, the Work Doctor.com.
I must admit to being somewhat skeptical about 'research' such as the 2003 Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute Report on the Abusive Worksite that is self described as follows:
Source: Data were gathered in 2003 from anonymous and confidential online surveys posted at this website -- bullyinginstitute.org. A "nonscientific" sample of 1,000 volunteer respondents (a respondent is one who completes the survey) who visited the website seeking solutions to their vexing problems at work attributed to a directly experienced cruelty from one or more persons. The research was necessarily done from the perspective of targeted individuals. Participants had the option of completing all or some of the 22-section survey.I am even more skeptical of the benefit of unleashing the American legal system on something as ill defined as "bullying."