In many workplaces, whether private companies or public services, employers are persecuting workers with increasing harshness. Employers are doing this through:
- strict and punitive sickness absence policies;
- petty discipline clampdowns;
- cutting staffing levels and increasing workload;
- 'performance management' and numerous targets which are arbitrary and/or very hard to achieve;
- constant pressure, scrutiny and micro-management;
-harassment and discrimination.
This constitutes management bullying of workers, and along with matters such as pay, hours and pensions, is a major issue for workers.
Workers facing this bullying need the support of strong trade union organisation. We want to give workers effective representation and to boost their confidence to stand up for themselves. We also want to encourage and support workers in fighting back, and to raise the profile of this important issue. To do this, we need a national, cross-industry, rank-and-file-led campaign to resist management bullying.
We therefore resolve to initiate such a campaign on a broad basis, linking up trade unionists from different industries, unions and geographical areas. We ask union branches and other rank-and-file bodies to sign up to this call. The signatories are committed to supporting each others' work on this issue, and to working together to provide information, resources, training, events and actions to stop management bullying.
“The purpose of this website is to provide resources for workplace activists who want to stand up to the bosses' clampdown. We are building a resource base of news, reports, campaigning ideas, events, strategies and ideas, links, appeals for solidarity, printable materials, legal rights information, political analysis and more. We welcome contributions, which should be emailed to wearenotslaves@googlemail.com.
To really tackle this issue, to resist management bullying, to assert our dignity at work, we need more than a website - we need a national, cross-industry, rank-and-file-led campaign, working on a broad basis, linking up trade unionists from different industries, unions and geographical areas. We hope that this website is a step towards creating that.” - Janine Booth, Secretary (RMT London Transport Regional Council)
More content will appear here soon.
Please note that we do not provide advice and representation for individual cases. You should ask for this from your trade union. Click here - http://www.tuc.org.uk/tuc/unions_main.cfm - for a list of TUC-affiliated trade unions and their contact details.
