Working People13 Mar 2023

The Fight to Pass the Workplace Psychological Safety Act (w/ Misty Orlando, Dr. Jennifer Fraser, & Jerry Carbo)

While there are some stronger and broader laws in particular states, there is currently no federal standard defining, let alone outlawing, workplace bullying if the case does not involve harassment or discrimination of a member of a "protected status group" based on their race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability. And yet, according to a 2021 survey commissioned by the Workplace Bullying Institute, 30% of adult Americans say they are currently being bullied or have experienced bullying at work, and that number jumps up to 39% for the currently employed Americans who were surveyed. That's not a small, insignificant problem. That's a lot of the working population. And the results also show that instances of bullying have actually increased in recent years with the expansion of remote work. But advocates are pushing legislators in different states to strengthen laws to protect workers from bullying in the workplace, and there are signs of hope concerning a bill in Oregon that would do just that. In this mini-cast, we speak with Misty Orlando, who has been the primary grassroots lobbyist for the bill, as well as Dr. Jennifer Fraser, author of The Bullied Brain, and Jerry Carbo, president of the National Workplace Bullying Coalition and professor of management at the Grove College of Business at Shippensburg University.

Additional links/info below...

Misty's Twitter page
Jennifer's website and Twitter page
National Workplace Bullying Coalition website, Twitter page, and Facebook page
Dr. Jennifer Fraser, Rowman & Littlefield, The Bullied Brain: Heal Your Scars and Restore Your Health
KMUZ, Willamette Wake Up, "Workplace Psychological Safety Act: Combating Bullying in the WorkPlace"
Jefferson Public Radio, "Oregon Legislators Urged to Support Workplace Psychological Safety Act"
Maximillian Alvarez, Breaking Points, "Max Alvarez: A DEADLY, Silent Epidemic of Workplace Abuse is Growing"
Working People, "Happy Birthday, Evan (w/ Amy Chamberlin & Jana Murphy)"

Permanent links below...

Working People Patreon page
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

Jules Taylor, "Working People Theme Song

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(405)

Want to save the world? Start by unionizing your workplace

"We are living in a pivotal moment in labor history," Cole Rockarts writes in their new book Fired Up About Unions. "At a time when corporations have more power, profit, and political influence than e...

30 Sep 53min

Toledo residents' lives upended by deadly Brent Industries explosions

On the morning of August 18, residents living near the Brent Industries facility in Toledo, Ohio, awoke to a series of massive explosions and a towering chemical fire in their backyards. Two Brent Ind...

23 Sep 57min

"Purge Palantir!": Union nurses warn Big Tech and Big Brother are invading our healthcare system

On August 27, registered nurses, patients, and community allies rallied and stopped traffic in cities around the US to demand that hospitals and elected officials cut all ties with artificial intellig...

16 Sep 43min

Why the stories working people tell ourselves about ourselves matter (Wheeling, WV Labor Symposium Speech)

Over the 2026 Labor Day weekend, Working People host and TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez spoke at the Reuther-Pollack Labor History Symposium in Wheeling, West Virginia, organized by the Whee...

9 Sep 32min

Can anyone "make it" in today's music industry?

The 20th-century days of vinyl records, tape decks, CDs, Tower Records, and MTV have given way to our 21st-century age of MP3s and music streaming, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, TikTok, and Ticketmaster. ...

2 Sep 56min

"Katrina 2.0": Residents of Gary, Indiana fight to survive without power for 12 days (and counting)

After a deadly "derecho" storm and flash floods slammed the midwest in early August, downing trees and power lines, tens of thousands of residents in and around Gary, Indiana have been surviving witho...

24 Aug 47min

No such thing as 'unskilled work': Barbara Ehrenreich's 'Nickel and Dimed' 25 years later

In her 2001 masterwork Nickel and Dimed, the late Barbara Ehrenreich went undercover to report on the daily realities working people in America face trying to get by on minimum-wage. After working as ...

19 Aug 46min

Layoffs, long waits, obscene prices: Vermont healthcare workers and patients face historic crisis

Frontline healthcare workers and the patients they serve are facing a major crisis at the University of Vermont Health network—the state's leading healthcare provider. "In June, UVM Health eliminated ...

13 Aug 27min