The basic relationship between workers and bosses is one in which the former (us) is exploited by the latter (them). That relationship is fundamentally unjust, even when the day-to-day interactions between workers and bosses are conducted on pleasant or friendly terms. Campaigning against bullying does not mean justifying that basic relationship, but when the administering of that relationship by managers takes on a particularly harsh, authoritarian and disciplinarian form it is worth resisting; in order, as much as anything else, to expose the basic inequality at the heart of all boss-worker relationship, whether they involve “bullying” or not.
Precisely because of the inherently exploitative nature of the boss-worker relationship, part of the problem with resisting workplace bullying is the difficulty in defining what constitutes “bullying” and what are merely ordinary symptoms of the basic relationship. We offer here a selection of resources which attempt to define what workplace bullying is.
This is a fact-sheet produced by “Ban Bullying At Work”, a campaign run by the anti-bullying Angela Adams Trust. Although the Trust is a self-proclaimed “non-political” organisation and does not make strong workers' self-organisation on the shop-floor its point of departure, it provides a useful framework for understanding the behaviour that constitutes bullying. For example, it helpfully points out that management behaviour that many workers, particularly those working for especially bureaucratic organisations, have come to take for granted (such as “witholding work-related information” and “constantly changing guidelines”) can actually be tactics used by bosses to specifically undermine, demoralise and bully workers.
The Workplace Bullying Institute is an American NGO that fights workplace bullying through “legislative means.” Again, we do not share this perspective or approach, but the framework offered is useful.
This lengthy academic paper is a bit difficult to get to grips with, but contains several comprehensive case-studies that deal with different ways of understanding bullying in the workplace.
