The Boston Globe published an article on the problem of workplace bullying recently that focused on a proposed state-by-state solution that has been touted since 2001 by Gary Namie of the Workplace Bullying Institute and Suffolk University Professor David R. Yamada, author of the proposed Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB). Originally introduced in California in 2002, the HWB has been considered in some form by more than two dozen states. If Massachusetts eventually passes the HWP, that only leaves workers in 49 states, five territories and the District of Columbia without protection from workplace bullying.
Is this really where all the din and struggle of the past decade has gotten us? The United States is falling even farther behind other western democracies, some of which acted decades ago to protect workers from bullying.
The Globe article also perpetuates the common misconception that all workplace bullies are sadistic bosses and mean-spirited co-workers. In fact, much of the problem can be attributed to unscrupulous employers that use bullying tactics strategically to expel older workers and workers who demand better working conditions or a legal right (i.e., overtime pay). The absence of anti-bullying laws and regulations in the United States leave these bottom-of-the-barrel employers free to cut corners and evade their legal responsibilities. Taxpayers are left to pick up the tab in the form of higher social welfare costs.
Still Far From a National Workplace Bullying Solution
It is an interesting phenomenon that workplace bullying advocates seem to have a hard time working together.
In fact, they don’t, which is one reason why after so many years there is no national solution on the horizon to the problem of workplace bullying.
The Workplace Bullying Institute, chaired by Gary Namie, has been touting a law written by Suffolk University Professor David Yamada since 2002. The so-called Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB) has been considered by more than 20 states but it has only been passed, in small part, by Tennessee. Unfortunately, Tennessee’s version of the HWB was so unfortunate that it was promptly disowned by Namie.
Even if the HWB was passed by some states in an unaltered form, it is almost inconceivable that it would be adopted by competitive, pro-business states where workers are the most vulnerable to abuse. And some say it is fortunate that the HWB has fared so poorly, because it offers scant real protection to targets of workplace bullying, especially when compared to anti-workplace bullying laws and legislation passed in other countries.
Nevertheless, the Workplace Bullying Institute has succeeded in bringing attention to the problem of workplace bullying through its state-by-state campaign.
I was part of the formation of the National Workplace Bullying Coalition (NWBC) a couple of years ago. Some of the group’s members had been put off by Namie, a seemingly gruff and territorial man who has been called a bully himself by a competitor. Despite this, the NWBC reached out to Namie and Yamada with no success.
From my perspective, it is unfortunate that the NWBC finally settled on a vague mission statement to “work with legislatures at the local, state and federal levels to refine the definition of workplace bullying and implement laws to protect workers’ rights to dignity at work.” That’s a type of frustrating all things to all people approach that reminds me of the “I’d like to buy the world a coke” commercial for world peace.
Yet, the NWBC has made progress by encouraging the EEOC to study the issue of general workplace harassment. One of the NWBC board members, Professor Jerry Carbo, is a member of an EEOC Select Task Force recently formed by EEOC Commissioner Jenny Yang. The group is expected to issue a report that sheds insight into and offers suggestions to address workplace bullying. This is an important step.
My area of focus is and always was to achieve a national solution to the problem of workplace bullying. I believe the answer lies in a combination of health and safety regulations enforced by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration and in a federal law that protects all workers from a hostile workplace environment. I advocated a national solution when I wrote my book, Surviving Bullies, Queen Bees & Psychopaths in the Workplace and I still believe it is the only realistic way to protect American workers.
For years, I have received emails every week from good, hard-working Americans who are being viciously bullied on the job and who are suffering severe mental and physical distress. Workplace bullying is a widely acknowledged form of workplace violence. Other industrialized countries took steps years ago – in some cases decades – to address the problem of workplace bullying. And yet workers in the United States, who have lost so much in recent years, still have virtually no protection, especially if they are poor or middle class.
Maybe it is naive to think we could be more effective if we worked together to demand a national solution? But workers need a real solution and they need it today, not in the distant future.
The recent controversy over the passage of an anti-bully law in Tennessee provides more evidence that a national solution is the only viable way to combat the epidemic of workplace bullying in the United States.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported upon the lack of enthusiasm for a new law passed by Tennessee’s legislature last May to protect public sector employees from workplace abuse. The upshot of the story was that the law actually provides little or no protection to public sector workers who are targets of bullying and workplace abuse.
Tennessee’s “Healthy Workplace Act” calls for an advisory commission to create a model anti-bully policy for public sector workers by March 1, 2015. The law states that if a public sector employer adopts the model policy or an equivalent anti-bully policy “then the employer shall be immune from suit for any employee’s abusive conduct that results in negligent or intentional infliction of mental anguish.” Thus, if administrators simply adopt a policy – even if it is never enforced – they will receive legal immunity from potential lawsuits.
Not only does the Tennessee law do little to protect workers, it potentially could make things worse by preventing targets of workplace abuse from seeking damages for emotional distress while removing what many consider to be the only real incentive for employers to maintain a healthy workplace – the threat of a lawsuit.
Continue reading “Hollow Victory of Anti-Bully Law”
I am pleased to announce that this blog is a founding member of the National Workplace Bullying Coalition (NWBC), the first organization dedicated to seeking a national solution to the problem of workplace bullying in the United States.
The NWBC proposes a convention, similar to a constitutional convention, to detail the nature of workplace bullying, the negative consequences to both employers and employees, how today’s business leaders address the issue and what remains to be accomplished. The NWBC supports state and local efforts to address workplace bullying but the goal ultimately is to achieve a national law or regulations that provides employers with incentive to insure a safe, healthy and bully-free workplace for all employees.
Many developed countries around the world already have legislation in place to address workplace bullying. However, in the vast majority of workers in America workers have no protection unless they can shoehorn their claim under an existing law, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects individuals on the basis of race, sex, religion & national origin.
The Workplace Bullying Institute has backed state legislation, the proposed Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB), since 2002. Versions of the HWB have been proposed in more than 20 states but none of the bills have passed, raising questions about the viability of this approach. Also, it is highly unlikely that so-called “pro business” states will willingly adopt workplace anti-bullying legislation, leaving employees with no recourse.
Nevada State Senator Richard Segerblom of Las Vegas, NV, has proposed a different solution to the problem of workplace bullying that some consider to be more promising than the HWB approach. Segerblom has proposed amending Nevada’s employment discrimination law so that anyone who is a victim of a hostile workplace environment has a legal remedy whether or not they can show illegal discrimination. In other words, he has proposed making the hostile workplace remedy “status blind.”
Many national surveys show that workplace bullying is epidemic in the United States. CareerBuilder in 2011 found that one in four workers in the United States experience workplace bullying, which has potentially severe mental and physical health impacts. Most targets of workplace bullying are expelled from the workplace – fired or forced to quit – and many suffer the symptoms of post traumatic stress syndrome for years afterward.
The NWBC is an outgrowth of New Jersey workplace anti-bullying efforts and a loose-knit coalition called Protect U.S. Workers, created by this blog and documentary filmmaker Beverly Peterson of Our Bully Pulpit. The NWBC supports the on-going petition drive by Protect U.S. Workers’ calling upon the Obama administration and the Secretary of Labor to adopt a national approach to workplace bullying.
Membership in the new coalition includes The Honorable Sue Pai Yang, who retired in 2012 after serving as the first Asian American appointed to the Workers’ Compensation Court in New Jersey; Jerry Carbo, Esq. an Associate Professor of Management at the Grove College of Business at Shippensburg University, Pennsylvania, who has researched and written about workplace bullying.; Catherine Mattice. who runs the consulting business, Civility Partners, LLC, which specializes in helping organizations realize positive workplace cultures; and The Honorable Stephen Tuber is a retired Judge of the New Jersey Division of Workers’ Compensation – 1981 – 2009).
The decade-long strategy of adopting state-by-state legislation to deal with workplace bullying in the United States has suffered yet another defeat.
The Maine House of Representatives recently voted 87-56 to sustain Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s veto of a bill aimed at bullying in the workplace that had been adopted by Maine’s legislature.
The bill, which was supported by the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI), directed the Maine Workers’ Compensation Board to study psychological and physical harm employees suffer due to abusive work environments.
In his veto message, the governor said the study was unnecessary because the Workers’ Compensation Board already provides benefits to employees who suffer physical and psychological injuries on the job.
Maine was the 24th state to consider some version of the WBI’s proposed Healthy Workplace Bill but no state has yet to adopt it.
This blog advocates a federal and national solution to the problem of workplace bullying, which affects one in every three or four workers in the United States. So far about 8,000 targets of workplace bullying have signed a petition demanding action from the Obama Administration.
Ruth and Gary Namie, founders of the WBI, have led a decade-long campaign to pass proposed legislation called The Healthy Workplace Bill.
Drafted by Suffolk University Law Professor David Yamada, the bill was overhauled earlier this year after criticism by workplace anti-bully advocates that it offered far less protection to targets of workplace bullying than similar legislation in other countries.
The Namies, who aggressively market consulting services and book sales on the WBI web site, and Mr. Yamada, who formed an organization called The New Workplace Institute, have not cooperated with other workplace anti-bully advocates who formed a coalition last year (Protect US Workers) to support a federal solution to workplace bullying.
America lags far behind Europe, Canada, Australia and many other industrialized countries in protecting workers from bullying, which is widely considered to be a health-harming form of workplace violence..
The heretofore anemic Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB) has received a dose of iron in its latest iteration in Massachusetts.
The version of the HWB submitted for consideration to the Massachusetts’ legislature omits the $25,000 cap on damages for targets who were not subjected to demotion or dismissal.
The Workplace Bullying Institute has pushed the HWB, written by Suffolk University Law Professor David C. Yamada, for more than a decade as part of state-by-state campaign to pass workplace anti-bullying legislation. More than 20 states have considered the HWB bill since 2002 but none as yet have adopted it. This year the bill is under consideration in about a half dozen states.
International scholars criticized the HWB in recent years because it was far less protective of targets of workplace bullying than laws and regulations of other industrialized countries.
This blog criticized the HWB’s requirements that targets prove malice and psychological damage (the latter was expressly rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in federal anti-discrimination laws) and the unreasonably low cap on damages.
The revised bill still defines an abusive work environment as one where “an employer or one or more of its employees, acting with intent to cause pain or distress to an employee, subjects that employee to abusive conduct that causes physical harm, psychological harm, or both.”
How would one go about providing that a bully acted “with intent to cause pain or distress?” I have no idea. Suggestions?
In addition, workplace bullying almost always involves psychological harm. The bill’s requirement to prove psychological harm penalizes poor people and members of minority groups who tend to visit mental health professionals far less frequently for monetary or cultural reasons. In addition, this approach was explicitly rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court as a requirement in race and sex discrimination cases involving a hostile workplace . (Harris v. Forklift System, 510 U.S. 17 (1993)).
The proposed Massachusetts bill, sponsored by Rep. Ellen Story and Sen. Katherine Clark.
A far better alternative to the problem of workplace bullying has been proposed by State Sen. Richard “Tick” Segerblom of Nevada.
Segerblom proposed extending the umbrella of discrimination laws to protect any worker who is exposed to a “hostile work environment.” Currently, only workers who have protected status under these laws by virtue of their race, sex, national original, etc. are protected.
If an employer or an employee are held to be in violation of the law, the Massachusetts bill provides that a court can order any relief that is “deemed appropriate, including, but not limited to: reinstatement, removal of the offending party from the complainant’s work environment, back pay, front pay, medical expenses, compensation for pain and suffering, compensation for emotional distress, punitive damages, and attorney’s fees.”
According to the proposed bill, an abusive workplace environment is one where “an employer or one or more its employees, acting with intent to cause pain or distress to an employee, subjects that employee to abusive conduct that causes physical harm, psychological harm, or both.”
Abusive conduct involves “acts, omissions, or both, that a reasonable person would find abusive, based on the severity, nature, and frequency of the conduct … .” This includes but is not limited to:
repeated verbal abuse such as the use of derogatory remarks, insults, and epithets;
verbal, non-verbal, or physical conduct of a threatening, intimidating, or humiliating nature;
or the sabotage or undermining of an employee’s work performance.
The proposed Massachusetts bill continues to distinguish between targets of bullying who have and have not been subjected to an adverse employment action (i.e., demotion or dismissal). The cap is gone but the latter still cannot recover from the employer damages for emotional distress or punitive damages unless the “actionable conduct was extreme and outrageous.” This limitation does not apply to “individually named defendants.” Thus, an employee who did not suffer an adverse employment action can only seek monetary damages from bully unless the actionable conduct was extreme and outrageous.
The bill also prohibits retaliation against targets who complain and anyone else who testifies, assists or participates in an investigation of workplace bullying.
The stated purpose of the Massachusetts bill is to provide a “legal incentive for employers” to prevent and respond to abusive treatment of employers at work.
Under the bill, it is an “aggravating factor” if the abusive conduct exploits an employee’s known psychological or physical illness or disability. In that case, a single act that is “especially severe and egregious” would be actionable.
Employers can escape liability by showing they exercised “reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any actionable behavior; and, the complainant employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of appropriate preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer.”
Also, employers cannot be penalized if the complaint is based on an adverse employment action made for poor performance, misconduct or economic necessity, a reasonable performance evaluation or “an employer’s reasonable investigation about potentially illegal or unethical activity.”
The bill would require an employee to file an action within a year of the last act that constitutes the alleged violation.
The above headline, or something like it, is depressingly familiar in the United States.
One reason may be that almost anyone can get a semi-automatic handgun in America, which escalates what should have been bloody nose to catastrophic proportions.
But there is another reason too.
American employers lack the motivation to deal appropriately with workplace conflict. Indeed, some unscrupulous employers even use bullying intentionally to achieve a goal – like driving out good employees who assert a legal right or downsizing without paying unemployment compensation.
Remember the Corvair? It was an unsafe car that was targeted a few decades ago by consumer activist Ralph Nadar, who said the car manufacturer knew the Corvair was unsafe but refused to make it safer because it was cheaper to settle lawsuits filed on behalf of the dead and injured. Experts know that bullying and harassment cause the target to suffer potentially severe physical and mental damage, sometimes leading to suicide or workplace fatalities. But nobody – not even the federal government – does anything about it. Cheaper to pay the dead and injured.
For more than a decade, workplace anti-bully activists have lobbied without success to pass what in reality is an incredibly weak proposed state law (Healthy Workplace Bill) to discourage workplace bullying and harassment.
Meanwhile, many industrialized countries around the world have enacted laws and regulations that clearly place the responsibility upon the employer to maintain a safe and bully-free workplace.
American employees who are hounded out of a job are left with a hodgepodge of ill-fitting laws to fall back on. If they do somehow manage to file a lawsuit, they are likely to encounter a hostile judiciary. Research shows that federal judges almost routinely dismiss discrimination cases before the case can even get to a jury.
This week, Jeffrey Johnson, 58, who had been laid off as a women’s accessory designer, shot and killed a 41-year-old manager at Johnson’s former workplace, Hazan Imports Corp. of New York City. Johnson fled the scene but was followed by a construction worker. Johnson took a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol from his bag after two officers on counterterrorism patrol approached him. As many as nine people were shot – some possibly by police – before Johnson was dead. Johnson does not appear to have any criminal record.
There is no indication that Johnson felt bullied or harassed or that Hazan failed to properly address workplace conflict. But he was obviously a disgruntled worker.
The incident is part of the on-going volatility of America right now where it is no longer shocking to read a headline such as: “Disgruntled Man Returns to Workplace and Kills (pick a number).”
Most people who think of workplace bullies invoke the image of the combative boss played by Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glenn Ross or the passive-hostile magazine editor played by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada.
But some workplace bullies are not individuals but the employer itself – a fact that often gets lost in the discussion of workplace bullying. Some employers use strategic harassment tactics on workers to avoid legal obligations, such as the payment of fair wages, workers compensation or unemployment insurance.
Employers that bully promulgate policies that take advantage of their workers. For example, they steal wages from their employees by intentionally misclassifying them as exempt and thus ineligible for overtime.
The Progressive States Network estimates that low-wage workers lose $51 per week to wage theft, or $2,634 per year. That amounts to approximately 15% of their annual income
Some employers use strategic harassment to get rid of good employees. This occurs when an employer targets one or more workers for harassment to achieve an organizational goal. Some employers, for example, make life miserable for workers when they want to downsize without paying unemployment insurance. Or they harass a “troublemaker” who has asserted a legal right to fair compensation or overtime, essentially forcing him or her to quit.
Other employers knowingly tolerate bullies in their employ for crass economic reasons – athough that strategy can backfire.
Ani Chopourian filed at least 18 complaints with the Human Resources Dept. of Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento, CA, during the two years she worked there as a physician assistant. She was fired after the last complaint. A federal court jury in March awarded Chopourian $168 million in damages, believed to be the largest judgment for a single victim of workplace harassment in U.S. history.
Many of Chopourian’s complaints involved a bullying surgeon who she said once stabbed her with a needle. Another surgeon, she said, would greet her each morning with “I’m horny” and slap her bottom. Another called her “stupid chick” in the operating room and made disparaging remarks about her Armenian heritage, such as asking her if she had joined Al Qaeda.
Ms. Chopourian speculated that hospital administrators put up with misbehavior in the cardiac unit and tolerated the surgeons’ outsize egos because cardiac surgery tends to bring in the most money for any hospital facility.
Surveys show that workplace bullying is epidemic in the United States, where at least one in four American workers reports being bullied in the workplace. Workplace bullying can cause a target to experience potentially severe psychological and physical illness, including clinical depression, post traumatic stress syndrome and stress-related chronic disease.
Much of the focus on the problem in the United States has involved a state-by-state campaign to pass a civil law that would allow targets of workplace bullying to seek damages from individual employers. However, such a law would do nothing to combat the systemic problem of employer bullying and abuse in the United States.
This blog is part of a loose-knit coalition of workplace anti-bully advocates that is calling upon the U.S. Secretary of Labor and the Obama administration to promulgate a comprehensive national solution to the problem of workplace bullying and abuse that would address the problem of bullying employers. If you agree, sign our petition at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/protect-us-workers/?cid=FB_TAF.
After a decade, questions are being raised about whether the state-by-state campaign to pass the so-called Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB) is a realistic solution to the epidemic of workplace bullying in the United States.
This blog suggested last fall that it was time to think about options other than the HWB, which was first proposed a decade ago and has yet be adopted by any of the 20 states that have considered it. I proposed that the U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis empanel a task force to study the problem and propose new legislation on how to best address the problem of workplace bullying nationally.
The Vermont Senate has thrown out efforts to pass the HWB in that state and voted to create a task force to determine the best way to provide relief and redress for state residents suffering in abusive work environments. Senate Bill 52 suggests looking at different models to remedy workplace bullying, including:
Create a private right of action that would include the recovery of damages (like the HWB).
Create a mechanism for injunctive relief similar to those relating to stalking, hate crimes, or relief-from-abuse orders.
State enforcement similar to the employment discrimination law.
State enforcement by the Vermont occupational safety and health administration.
Gary Namie, the director of the Workplace Bullying Institute, this week issued a defense of the HWB which the institute has supported since it was drafted by Suffolk University Law Professor David Yamada in 2002.
Namie primarily argues the HWB’s private right of action is best because it is “revenue neutral” and won’t burden states financially.
For the following reasons, I support a different approach:
Proponents of the HWB have been advocating for a decade to pass the HWB in individual states. Twenty states have considered the HWB so far but no state has passed a bill. One state might yet be persuaded to pass a version of the HWB but it could take decades for a significant number of states to do so. Some extreme pro-business states will never voluntarily pass a workplace anti-bully bill, just as they have fought tooth-and-nail against other workplace protections.
The HWB as proposed is anemic. It contains hurdles that are not found in laws adopted in other industrialized countries, or in other U.S. civil rights laws involving the concept of a hostile work environment. These hurdles include requirements that targets prove malice and psychological injury and a $25,000 cap on damages for targets who are not demoted or fired. Many – if not most — targets will find it difficult or impossible to obtain a meaningful remedy. (Namie and Yamada refused to respond to questions about the troubling language of the HWB.)
Under the General Duty Clause of the Occupational Health and Safety Act of 1970 (OSH Act), employers are required to provide employees with a safe workplace. Overwhelming research shows that workplace bullying can result in potentially serious mental and physical harm. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which administers the OSH act, should protect workers from bullying, just as it protects workers from physical hazards. It’s not a question of passing a new law but enforcing the OSH Act. (Last year, OSHA adopted a workplace anti-bully policy for its own workers.)
Workplace bullying is widely acknowledged to be a form of workplace violence. Although it is primarily psychological in nature, it can lead to physical violence. It exists on the same spectrum of violence as domestic violence and elder or child abuse, all of which are addressed on a federal and state level. One of the core functions of society is to protect its vulnerable citizens from violence. The HWB provides a private right of action. This means that its enforcement mechanism is the embattled target, who after months or decades of bullying may lack the emotional, physical, and financial resources to hire an attorney and to embark on lengthy litigation with an uncertain outcome. What happens if a target cannot or will not act? The bully moves on to his or her next target.
A workplace bully is not always an individual. Employers use “strategic harassment” to get rid of workers who demand their rights and to cheat workers out of their legal rights – such as unemployment compensation, worker’s compensation, and/or fair pay and benefits. A target suing a single employer cannot solve this problem.
Other arguments advanced by Namie lack persuasiveness.
An enforcement action by a federal agency would be covered by the press, just like a private lawsuit.
And, yes, the monetary penalty for state and federal OSH Act violations is insufficient but this can and should be addressed. OSHA citations also trigger other penalties (including possible criminal sanctions) and an expensive investigation and hearing process. Employers work diligently to avoid OSHA citations.
Namie and Yamada are concerned about the risk of burdening the court system with cases that rest on “hurt feelings” rather than true bullying. But wouldn’t this argument apply equally to any other lawsuit involving a complaint of a hostile work environment, including sexual harassment or race discrimination lawsuits? Where is the evidence to suggest that frivolous lawsuits will be a particular problem with respect to workplace bullying? And why should this be a focus of concern for anti-bully advocates? Isn’t this what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce does?
Vermont’s bill notes that the Vermont office of attorney general’s civil rights unit reports that of the 1,200 to 1,300 requests for assistance it receives each year, a substantial number involve allegations of severe workplace bullying that cannot be addressed by current state or federal law or common law tort claims.
The United States lags behind many other industrialized countries in addressing workplace bullying. That is shameful. We owe a debt to Namie and Yamada for significantly helping to raise public awareness about the problem of workplace bullying, and for their extensive work on the issue. However, a solution is long overdue. It is time to consider other options to protect the one in four American workers who suffer with this insidious health and safety problem.
With America’s workplace anti-bully movement seemingly stuck in the trenches, perhaps it is time to follow the example of America’s neighbor to the North.
The Canadian province of Quebec amended its Labour Standards Act in 2002 to ban non-discriminatory workplace harassment and bullying. The law, which went into effect on June 1, 2004, also imposes a duty on employers to prevent and stop bullying.
According to one observer, the law was the result of a sustained campaign by Quebec unions, as well as by a non-profit advocacy and resource group for non-unionized workers, “Au bas l’echelle” (in English, “Rank and File”).
This effort resulted in the establishment in 1999 by then Minister of Labor, Diane Lemieux, of an Interdepartmental Committee on Psychological Harassment at Work. The committee in 2001 recommended the government take legislative steps to prohibit psychological harassment.
It is time for unions and workplace anti-bully advocates to call upon the U.S. Secretary of Labor to empanel a commission to study the problem of workplace bulling in the United States and recommend new legislation to Congress.
There is overwhelming research that the problem of workplace bullying is epidemic in the United States, affecting at least one in four workers, and that workplace bullying destroys lives and costs American employers billions every year.
Efforts began in the United States almost a decade ago to pass a so-called Healthy Workplace Bill on a state-by-state basis. Thus far, no state has adopted the bill, which is much weaker than Quebec’s legislation.
Meanwhile, the worsening economy has left more and more workers vulnerable to bullying. Not only are there fewer jobs, but the nature of the workforce is changing. More workers today are categorized as “independent contractors” who receive no benefits and low pay. These include home-workers, tele-workers, piece-workers.
Even if one state does step up and adopt a workplace anti-bully bill, it will take decades, if ever, before all of the states do.
*** See Debra L. Parkes, “Targeting Workplace Harassment in Quebec: On Exporting a New Legislative Agenda” (2004) 8 Empl. Rts. & Employ. Pol’y J. 423.
mitted for consideration to the Massachusetts’ legislature omits the $25,000 cap on damages for targets who were not subjected to demotion or dismissal.