Oregon legislation adopted in 2023
Recently I heard from Misty Orlando, a workplace anti-bullying activist in Oregon, who shared with me her story of advocacy before her state legislature. Ultimately, thanks to her efforts and those of her fellow activists, last year the State of Oregon enacted a directive to the state’s labor department to develop a “model respectful workplace policy” that can be adopted voluntarily by employers (link here).
Their goal was much more ambitious. They wanted to see the enactment of more full-fledged protections against workplace bullying for all of Oregon’s workers. Instead, Oregon adopted language directing the state’s Bureau of Labor and Industries to:
- “prepare a model respectful workplace policy that employers may adopt,” taking “into consideration existing respectful workplace policies”; and,
- “create informational materials that identify the harms to employees and employers caused by workplace bullying and make the materials available to employers.”
I greatly enjoyed my conversation with Misty and salute her and fellow activists for their work. This was their first go-round in advocating for workplace anti-bullying laws. Their efforts reinforce what we’ve seen in other states, namely, greater legislative receptivity to proposals concerning employer education and optional policies about workplace bullying, rather than favorably regarding new laws making workplace bullying an unlawful employment practice.
Nevertheless, this represents a step forward, and serves as a testament to effective citizen advocacy.
Minding the Workplace 
This is an interesting development, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
I do have a concern about “optional policies” regarding workplace bullying and harassment that does not fit into the “discrimination” boxes, and the risks of retaliation when employees try to make use of such policies.
Following is a scenario that I have heard many times:
Jane (who is nonunion) feels she is being bullied. There are no facts to suggest that the conduct at issue is sexual harassment or otherwise based on membership in a protected class.
Jane’s employer has a broad anti-harassment policy that encourages employees to report any harassment to human resources.
Jane complains to human resources about the harassment, believing that she is protected from retaliation.
Jane is terminated shortly after complaining.
In this situation, where the harassment is not because of a protected characteristic, what legal remedy does Jane have for the termination, even if she can prove the causal link between her complaint and losing her job?
Jane, who risked her job in reliance on the employer’s optional anti-harassment policy, will probably be left without legal recourse.
She might, in theory, have an argument that the anti-harassment policy was an enforceable promise, but the success of any such court case would be highly speculative (especially if there is a disclaimer in the handbook that contains the policy), at least in Massachusetts, and the costs of such litigation economically prohibitive for workers of limited means.
Lisa Bernt
Fair Employment Project
fairemploymentproject.org
Hi Lisa,
Thank you for raising these points. The answers depend a lot on Oregon employment law. If employee handbooks and policies are contractually enforceable, then presumably an Oregon employer that opts to include the state labor bureau’s model anti-bullying policy (or any anti-bullying policy, for that matter) in their handbook would be contractually held to follow it. And yes, even if that is the case, it raises any of the challenges present when someone is bringing a legal claim on the basis that the employer breached the contractual obligations of its own employee handbook.
Which is why it’s only a modest victory, legally speaking, and the Oregon advocates will continue to press for stronger, more direct protections against workplace bullying.
It’s also why here in Massachusetts, we continue to advocate for the Healthy Workplace Bill (S. 1170, Sen. Paul Feeney, lead sponsor), now in Senate Ways & Means after a favorable vote from the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development, mirroring progress we’ve seen in previous sessions.
Thanks much,
David
Looking forward to following all these developments.
This is very depressing and once again, indicates that retaliating against a co-worker with extreme emotional abuse, gaslighting, lying, harassment, humiliation, unjustifiable demotions, ostracizing, reputation ruination, jeopardizing or ending one’s livelihood, all just because some person with power and a severe personality disorder considers an employee to be “in the way” of them achieving and maintaining their self-serving objectives in terms of their control an narrative they wish to promote about themselves, is nothing more than “just a suggestion.” Until this heinous phenomenon is dealt with head on, and laws are put in place to that severely disenfranchise the employer, everything else is beside the point.
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I so wholeheartedly agree. To paraphrase your words, extreme emotional abuse, gaslighting, lying, harassment, humiliation, unjustifiable demotions, ostracizing, reputation ruination, jeopardizing or ending one’s livelihood. I will make a connection of those terms to some dark times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung This tactic of psychological abuse was used by East Germany on their targets long ago and also in the 1970’s and 80’s …..not so long ago.
I believe restitution payments have been made to some of these targets. They have also been making restitution payments to their targets that were being administered by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, Inc. That organization had a senior individual (and many more) prosecuted by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara recently (2013) who was found to be committing fraud. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-holocaust-claims-conference-director-sentenced-eight-years-prison-573-million A scheme by processing fraudulent applications to the Conference and turning a profit of thousands of dollars for himself. This is probably why Preet Bharara was fired by you know who.
I know the extent of damages I suffered at the hands of this practice in my workplace at Verizon Communication. A Verizon manager acknowledged to me what was going on. My research has lead me on to this path. The only resolution is a swiftly enacted federal law to prevent others from suffering. Like you say; Until this heinous phenomenon is dealt with head on, and laws are put in place to severely disenfranchise the employer, everything else is beside the point.
It is time for a federal law. I wonder what court ordered the restitution payments for the targeting of individuals that I mentioned? My research is never ending.