WORKPLACE BULLYING OR HARASSMENT

From the website of The New York Healthy Workplace Advocates:

"At present time, it is currently legal in the United States for an individual (usually a person in a supervisory role) to impair and/or destroy the physical and psychological well being of an employee, their social support network and career using an employer’s resources when a person is not a member of a protected status group. Current State and Federal laws only recognize an unlawful employment practice when a person is a member of a “protected status” group such as race, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, marital status, sex age or sexual orientation and the employer or any person acting directly or indirectly as an agent of the employer harasses an employee. Why isn’t workplace bullying covered under current State of Federal law? Because the bully and the target are both members of a protected class, therefore the existing harassment laws are negated and the bully is free to impair the health of another person without ramifications. NYHWA and via the Healthy Workplace Bill seeks to expand current harassment law to make it an unlawful employment practice to subject an employee to an abusive workplace environment regardless of protected status membership or better defined as a “status-blind” harassment protection."