In a recent piece (link here) on coping with depression and anxiety in today’s workplace, Yahoo finance writer Jeanie Ahn acknowledges that organizations themselves can trigger these conditions:
Workers should also recognize that the organization they work for could be dysfunctional: “The more disturbing the workplace, the more vulnerabilities and personal foibles will emerge,” says Dr. Lynn Friedman, a clinical psychologist and executive career counselor based in Washington, D.C.
Just like physical ailments, mental health can worsen from working long hours, lack of sleep, stress, overwhelming workloads, and toxic work environments.“One way to support people to be healthy is to look at areas of dysfunction in the workplace and address them in a direct and straightforward way,” says Friedman.
Of course, this plays right into the topic of workplace bullying and mobbing, which is responsible for causing a host of physical and mental health problems.
Disclosing to an employer
Regardless of whether a mental health situation has been caused or exacerbated by a toxic work environment, the question of disclosing the condition to one’s employer is full of complexities. If a condition rises to the level of a disability, then disability discrimination laws may require the employer to provide a reasonable accommodation for it. However, there are no guarantees here. Especially if the organizational culture is hostile or dysfunctional, it’s quite possible that disclosure and an accommodation request will yield negative results, including retaliation and/or being pushed out of one’s job.
Adds Yahoo’s Ahn:
“In an ideal world, you should be able to disclose a mental health issue without being discriminated against, but the reality is we don’t live in that perfect world,” says Darcy Gruttardo, director at the Center of Workplace Mental Health.
About half of workers in [a recent American Psychiatric Association survey] expressed concerns about discussing mental health issues at work; a third worried about consequences if they seek help. For those thinking about talking about it at work, Gruttardo recommends talking to your primary care doctor first to get any symptoms under control, before approaching human resources or an employee assistance program (EAP).
Missing from this analysis is the potential role of labor unions. Unionized workers will typically be able to approach their union representative for advice and support. In some cases, additional protections relevant to mental health treatment may be contained in a collective bargaining agreement. Like all types of organizations, some unions are much better than others at serving their members, but at the very least they provide options that other workers don’t enjoy.
As I say often on this blog, there are no easy answers when it comes to handling such matters. Organizations differ markedly in their fairness and integrity, as do individuals within them. At the very least, it’s important that we continue to understand organizational roles in supporting or undermining the mental health of workers. Only then can we consider solutions and responses.
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Minding the Workplace 
A union contract is only as good as the union that will back it up. There is no guarantee that a labor union will have your back as the one I belonged to threw me under the bus not once, but multiple times. Violations included the issuing of vacation accruals wrongly, and failure to notify the union when hours were being cut. The employer was calculating accruals based on their fiscal year which ran from 7/1-6/30. the contract said accruals were based on employee’s start date. Two lawyers and the union told the employer that they were not abiding by the contract. I got my hours back, but was told by the union NOT to tell any other union members. I would later receive a letter from the union President stating that my employer was offering me $25,000, but I had to sign a release of all claims I had against them. I refused their bribe, lost my job and relentlessly rattled every cage door I could find. The final result was when 10 people were told to resign or be fired. The union was nothing more than an enabler! Did I mention that I was the Shop Steward? The example this union set was that they will hang you out to dry before they will back you up! Union Strong- NOT ANYMORE!