Know your Rights – The Workplace Bullying You Face May Indeed be Unlawful Harassment
In the United States there is no law that protects targets against workplace bullying. While we have seen some state and local laws addressing workplace bullying (i.e. Tennessee and Virginia parts of California), the reality is that for the most part there still are no legal protections for targets of workplace bullying. We also do not have any specific laws addressing workplace harassment. However, what we do have is over thirty years of recognition by the SCOTUS that harassment that is based on a protected status (race, color, national origin, religion, gender, age status over 40 or disability) is a form of discrimination under the Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The complex system of laws around the US working relationship can cause a great deal of confusion. As a result, many working people believe they have more rights in the workplace than they do. For instance, many workers believe they have a right to only be fired for just cause (which is not the case for most non-unionized workers) or have a right to free speech in their place of work (again not the case for most workers). However, the complexity of the employment laws also leads many to think that certain rights that they do have, do not exist. The area of harassment and bullying often falls into this latter category.
Unlawful workplace harassment is subset of workplace bullying. The behaviors and outcomes of both are often identical, but for the bullying behavior to be unlawful it must be based on a protected status. So we often differentiate the two based on whether the behavior is based on a protected status and thus is unlawful (harassment) or is not based on a protected status and thus not unlawful (bullying). In my own research, I have found that a definition of bullying that is built around the legal definition of harassment (but expands to include non-status-based behaviors) captures a larger amount and number of bullying incidents than do other definitions CONTINUE READING: Badass Teachers Association Blog: Know your Rights – The Workplace Bullying You Face May Indeed be Unlawful Harassment