The liar in the room

The Liar in the Room

What a day to start this particular blog.

Jim Comey, Director of the FBI, gets fired for something his boss, President Traitor Trump (TT), praised him for, months ago.

This is something out of a scene from Casablanca.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nM_A4Skusro

Trump was shocked...shocked!!..to learn that Comey had been unfair to his rival, Hilary Clinton.

Of course he must be immediately dismissed.

Now, we all know that the basket of Deplorables

who voted for TT did so because he fired people:

• f2f,
• mano a mano.
• A regular tough guy who took no prisoners and wasn't frightened to deliver the hard news himself!

Wrong!!!

In this case, TT showed his cowardice by having his thug bodyguard deliver a letter to Comey's office while Comey was on the other side of the country.

And, Comey found out about the dismissal from a TV newscast while making a speech to FBI agents.

TT is a coward, a liar and a cheat.

What does this have to do with our topic de jour?

You can tell a lot about people by the way they deliver a dismissal. And, as a consequence, if you have been the subject of harassment in the workplace, this next piece will give you some guidance as to how successful you might be in fighting the dismissal-and what the reparations will be.

Leading up to the big day

1) has you supervisor refused to meet with you over issues repeatedly over several weeks?

2) has your supervisor coordinated special events over that period and left you out?

3) has there been an investigation into your work, recently?

4) have colleagues stopped speaking to you?

5) if you coordinate any committees, which colleagues typically attend, has participation by those colleagues been poor?

A mid term view leading up to termination

1) has your supervisor's boss decided that a special review be done of your programs?

2) if nothing incriminating has been discovered, has a review of a specific program been directed, ostensibly by your supervisor's supervisor?

3) still , if nothing incriminating has been found, are your decisions over several years being audited?

The big reveal

1) does your supervisor use information on your performance appraisal to condemn your work?

2) is the information the result of anonymous comments from colleagues and those others unknown to you?

3) is the information used the subject of an audit whose process and conclusions you have not seen, were not a part of ?

4) was there clear culpability of others in the audit, if it found fault?

There are a few of the tools that the offending corporation typically has, which will benefit you, the victim of an unwarranted termination.

Corporations typically have:

• a code of conduct. This code outlines what behaviours are expected of all employees . Fairness, civility, transparency, due process are critical in any credible corporations statement of values and beliefs. If information has been hidden from , is presented by anonymous sources, is provided without justification or attribution, it is invalid. If there is no evidence that your supervisor has worked with you to correct deficiencies in performance, you cannot be terminated. In fact, based on that alone, you my have a case not just wrongful dismissal but constructive dismissal.
• a code of ethics. Depending on where you work, there is at least a code of ethical practice governing all employees. This outlines code enunciates the limits of what is charitably determined to be moral ambiguity and disingenuous behaviour. This code might also be strengthened in corporations where there are designated professionals. Each regulated profession (engineering, nursing OT, medicine to name but a few) have a statement of ethics which regulates their conduct in their dealings with clients, each other and those around them-as well as their conduct in the community. This is important to you because you may have an action against not only the corporation BUT ALSO the individual supervisor. Just because you may win an action against the corporation and its agents does not restrict you from a separate action against your supervisor if s/he is also a member of a regulated discipline-even if s/he was not acting necessarily in that capacity.
• a whistleblowing policy. You will want to consider your role as a whistleblower. You would be coming forward as a person who is revealing corrupt management practices within the corporation. In the public service, this tactic is especially powerful. Civil servants are mostly grey little men and women hiding in their grey little offices. Shining a light on what they are actually doing is an anathema to their well being. They will combat any effort to bring light to their cowardice and bullying. So, becoming a whistleblower is emphatically not for the faint of heart.
• Read the "State of Whistleblowing in Canada"

         slaw.ca/2013/06/06/the-state-of-whistleblowing-in-canada

     OR

         Public Servants Disclosure Act (for Federal Civil servants)

     OR

         Public Interest Disclosure Act (in NB and for the protection of public sector employees from reprisal such as termination. You may also want to visit this site:

www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/treasury_board/human-resources/content/publications/disclosure.html

You may also want to consult your province's Occupational health and Safety Act. These typically protect the workers where they seek enforcement of certain safe practices or give evidence with respect to the Act.

I encourage caution.
One of the weaknesses of these provisions, as in the NB policy, is that while these "guarantee" protection from reprisal, the policies rarely say how.
Also, as in the NB case, the provision does not specify who one complains to, or even if the Board hears about such complaints.

So, it is possible that you wind up making your complaint to a loser in the HR department, who likely hasn't even heard of the policy, doesn't appreciate its import or scope, and simply tries to file the complaint in the trash. Worse still, you may wind up making the complaint to the person you are complaining about.

Finally there is the case of plausible deniability. If your boss, like TT is a weasel and a coward, then likely so is her/his supervisor. Don't be surprised if your supervisor's supervisor refuses to take your call.

In a well governed operation. The Board is regularly updated on such action. But if harassment is the culture of the organization, don't expect the Board to even know about such a policy.

Conclusion

These tools, if unpacked by a skilled labour attorney, will serve to ensure that you are successful in any litigation dealing with harassment and wrongful dismissal.

The next blog will deal with prevention. Harassment isn't just about you, so much as it seems that way. It has likely happened to many others. What are some actions you can take which will help ensure that you don't even get involved with these kinds of operation in the first place?