The movement to enact the Healthy Workplace Bill has been grounded in grassroots advocacy. Fortunately, the media is starting to pick up on that fact by profiling some of these citizen lobbyists for legal protections against workplace bullying.
Here are but two of the stories that have brought people to devote countless hours to this cause:
Monica Walker, Wisconsin
The Wisconsin State Journal ran this brief Q&A with Monica Walker of the Wisconsin Healthy Workplace Advocates:
Monica Walker has heard the stories: Employees isolated, taunted, sabotaged and humiliated by their bosses and co-workers. She can sympathize because Walker, 65, has experienced it herself.
That’s why the Mazomanie woman volunteered to be the state coordinator for the Healthy Workplace Bill making its way through the state Legislature. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, would require employers to create and enforce rules against repeated abusive behavior directed at workers – or face possible lawsuits.
Walker, now happily employed as an administrative assistant at New Heights Lutheran Church in Black Earth, told her story along with other “targets” of bullying at a Capitol hearing recently.
John Smurda, Ohio
The Steubenville Herald Star ran this profile of John Smurda of the Ohio Healthy Workplace Advocates:
It’s not as long a journey from automobile dealer to citizen advocate if one is committed to a cause. The switch in John Smurda’s life came as a result of reading a book and considering what he’s seen in his own family over the years. Smurda, a city resident, is now a volunteer citizen advocate for Ohio to pass a bill offering legal remedies to targets of workplace bullying.
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Hat tip to the Workplace Bullying Institute for links to these stories.
