Rachel Stafford takes on bosses who claim to be bullied by worker organizing.

Who’s bullying whom?

Nearly every organizer has some version of my story—supervisors rolling out crocodile tears at the slightest provocation, managers claiming they’re being harassed, attacked, threatened, bullied. I’ve heard of a boss claiming that workers airing their grievances made him feel like a rape victim blamed for wearing a short skirt. Another boss, targeted by a phone zap, had his wife text an organizer that “the harassment must stop,” only to later turn around and phone that same organizer 20 times in an hour. University bosses (not at my institution) called the cops on student organizers who had arrived for a scheduled appointment. Fired workers have been called bullies for filing labour board complaints. Bosses have fabricated physical altercations on pickets to lend credibility to their claims of being harassed.

I could go on. This kind of response is so common I usually pull out some version of it when roleplaying the boss in organizer trainings—I’ve gotten pretty good at crying on demand.

It’s natural that bosses do in fact feel threatened by organizing. Organizing is about shifting the balance of power away from the boss and towards the workers. When it becomes overt and the boss’s authority is challenged, that threat can feel personal, especially in workplaces where managers and workers mingle daily.

But the first thing to remember is that threats to bosses’ power are not in the same league as the constant threats workers contend with every day—the threat of losing one’s job, of not making rent, of having to put up with humiliation and disrespect and lack of control.

Read more: https://organizing.work/2019/09/when-bosses-play-the-victim/