In August 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. penned his Letter from Birmingham Jail.
He outlined four basic steps in the campaign to end racial injustice in America. This historic piece of literature offers several lessons for the now 25-year campaign to address abusive workplace conduct (workplace bullying). The campaign against workplace bullying is a fight for social and moral justice.
So with humility and inspiration, I attempt to modify and apply Dr. King’s eloquent observations in the Letter to our cause. He was writing to his campaign’s opponents and supporters. I address the indifference and inaction of employers and unions.
Step 1) Collection of facts to determine whether workplace abuse occurs. Since 2007 WBI has conducted a scientific survey with a representative sample of adult Americans. The most recent survey was in 2021. Thirty percent of Americans have directly experienced abusive conduct at work; another 19% witnessed it. When extrapolated to the workforce, 79.3 million workers are affected. So, indeed, bullying DOES happen; denial is useless. Besides the statistical proof, nearly every worker knows someone who is now, or once was, bullied. Yet, when WBI offered all employers the chance to assess prevalence in their organizations for free, over 100 responded. But NONE of the executives in those organizations granted permission to conduct the internal surveys.
Step 2) Negotiated, incremental steps taken toward justice. Though 31 states have introduced our anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill legislation, only limited training mandates have been passed. (Puerto Rico was the exception when it passed the full bill in 2019.) Voluntary employer action to prevent or correct bullying rarely happens. No U.S. laws compel compliance. [Consultants willing to call it incivility find a receptive audience with HR. But those initiatives do not address bullying, a form of workplace violence.] Concerning illegal sexual harassment, only in the aftermath of explosive public relations disasters for employers do employers sometimes hold long-time perpetrators accountable — by termination or stripping the person of their power. Thanks to the #MeToo movement of shaming employers defending harassers small shifts in public opinion have occurred. Not true with bullying (yet).
Step 3) The self-purification of activists and advocates by which Dr. King meant the preparation to face beatings or death, a personal risk assessment and commitment to the cause. The huge difference here is that bullied people are dragged into their misery involuntarily. They did not sign up for a cause. They were assaulted and injured through no fault of their own. Bullied individuals also face the slings and arrows of torment in two stages — first when initially bullied, secondarily after daring to make public the wrongdoing. The price paid is their personal health, suffering innumerable stress-related consequences, and economic security, nearly always losing their livelihood. They did not ask to be martyrs but are turned into martyrs by the systems that oppress them.
Step 4) Direct action. In the bullying world, this means breaking the silence, filing a lawsuit, or more dangerously filing an internal complaint relying on the employer’s internal system where it is investigator, judge and jury. Internal systems are designed to sustain, not ameliorate, bullying. Complainants are driven from the workplace, denigrated on their way out. Direct action is not for the faint of heart. Only courageous, highly principled individuals disgusted over the injustices they experienced take direct action. And the majority of us onlookers and bystanders do little to nothing to corroborate their complaints.
Action dramatizes the issue, making it unignorable. This creates “tension” and a sense of uncomfortableness for defenders of the status quo. King cited Niebuhr, “groups are more immoral than individuals.” It is rare that individuals make just and moral decisions; groups are less willing to give up privilege and power.
The timetable to change tends to be set by those who have not suffered. The oppressed are told to “wait,” meaning “never.” We advocates are legitimately impatient. Must we wait for everyone to directly experience bullying at work before action takes place. Few have the imagination or compassion to understand or appreciate the deep pain and “passionate yearnings of those that have been oppressed” (King).
Similar to racial injustice, workplace bullying is fiscally and psychologically unsound as well as morally wrong and sinful. It should be stopped for rational reasons. However, the process of bullying is irrational. Logic rarely applies and never prevails.
Just as King was gravely disappointed with the “white moderate,” we are demoralized by the corporate moderates. These are people more devoted to protecting the employer as institution than to achieving justice. These meek folks prefers the absence of tension (which King called “a negative peace”) to a positive healthy work environment for all to enjoy connoting the presence of justice. The destruction leveled against human lives by workplace abuse is sustained by “the appalling silence of good people” (King).
King wrote, “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute understanding from people of ill will.”
Are we extremists or radicals? We’re not extremists against hate and cruelty. We are extremists for uncompromised worker health and safety. We are extremists for the cause of justice. Is anti-bullying anti-capitalism? Not necessarily.
In the main, the workplace bullying movement is anti-abuse. Bullying is the only form of abuse not yet taboo in American society. However, King did see the toxicity of capitalism, its inequalities and its anti-democratic consequences. He was a prophet. America cannot face its own racism honestly (even on MLK’s birthday), it sure as hell can’t handle critiques of its fundamental economic system.
King was disappointed with the “white church and its leadership” by assuming they would support the freedom movement when they often did not . So it is with WBI wondering why Unions do not rush to stop the pain for their abused members. Where’s the courage to act decisively and morally on behalf of workers?
Rev. King certainly was effective in his life cut short by bullets. His Letter from Birmingham Jail was an early document from that career. It certainly is chock full of wisdom and lessons to be gleaned in service of the workplace bullying movement. We need more voices like his to confront powerful corporate forces that create and sustain bullying. In addition, he could also dare unions to step up and help heal their wounded members.
