I was struck by just how far the concept of bullying has come, not necessarily in the law of employment, but in society as a whole, by the first two featured blog posts in today's Huffington Post's Daily Brief:
While it is true that the so called anti-bullying law has yet to pass in a single legislature, it is foolish on the part of those in the world of employment law who think that it is a bad thing, to believe given the progress of this concept in our society as a whole, that it is not coming.
Marlo Thomas: Bully: The Year's Most Important Film
Even if you have to drive across state lines to see Bully, your kids need to be in the audience. Whether you know it or not, they may be among the 13 million American children affected by bullying every year. For them, this is more than just a movie. It is real life.
Bob Cesca: Right-Wing Bullies Continue to Attack Children
It's difficult to assign psychological motive when it comes to political tactics, but based upon the collective behavior of far-right conservative Republicans, we can only deduce that a considerable number of them are bullies and ought to be treated as such.
For those, like me, who think that the passage of this legislation would be an unmitigated disaster for employers and ultimately employees (albeit a real boon for those of us who make our living on employment litigation), the prescription is not to ignore the trend, but to make sure that conduct which can be perceived as bullying is addresssed promptly and quickly, not because it is illegal, but because it is both wrong and bad business.
My hope is that this post will, as so many (all?) of the posts that have preceded it over the years have done, just fade into oblivion, noticed by few and remembered by none.
My fear is that 10, 20 years from now, through the magic of google or some future research tool that we don't even know about yet, it will be dredged up and someone will say, you know he had a good point, we should have listened.