Adult Bullying: Is bullying in the workplace creating problems for future generations?

                The American economy has been in a downward slide for nearly a decade. Our future generations are now facing problems like soaring gas prices, budget cuts in school programs like Physical Education and music, along with budget and job cuts in the workplace. These problems are escalading out of control and could be linked to increasing bullying problems in the workplace. I recently discovered several articles that discussed studies showing a drastic increase in the percentage of workers bullied, not only here in American but around the world.

             The article,“Coalition cuts spark rise in work bullying” by Mark Ellis was posted on May 5, 2011 in England. This article discussed that one in three workers three have complained of bullying, nearly doubleing under the Tory-led Coalition government. And this problem is said to only get worse. However, many workers that are being bullied are afraid to complain as they are fearful of losing their jobs. A recent survey conducted by the largest public service union revealed how bullying causes stress, anxiety, anger, and low motivation to nearly 6,000 workers. Nearly half said they were too scared to complain as it could make them redundancy targets while one in four blamed cutbacks. And eight out of ten workers claimed they doubled their amount of work but still were receiving the same amount of pay due to budget cuts. This survey group expressed a great amount of concerned that bullying cases explode and multiple if these cuts continue.

            Another article I read over was post by Sandra Bookman from ABC news called, “The Bully-filled workplace”. This article discussed a studied that revealed that 35% of American workers claimed to have been bullied or are currently being bullied at work. That is approximately 53 million people! A young man shared with ABC how his first job out of college was a nightmare, claiming that he was belittled everyday by a co-worker that was verbally abusive. Many have linked this terrible behavior to the downward plunge of the economy. Many American are highly stressed with money issues due to the rising gas prices, etc. However, many will not voice their complainants for fear of losing their jobs. Though, not only is this growing problem creating health risks like depression and low self-esteem but, it can also hurt the company as well. Bullying can distract workers therefore causing a loss of productivity.

            How can we expect our children and future generations to stop bullying if adults are setting the example that bullying is okay? How can we expect to fix this problem without first fixing the problem that may be causing this? American needs to take responsibility for the problems it is creating for our future generation such as bullying. And I think that would start by setting a better example for our children, teens, and young adults.