Bullying by Mob

On March 14, 2013 By southwerkIn Business Ethics

Bullying by Mob

Janice Harper: What the Stanford Prison Experiment Can Teach Us About the Workplace

A focus on interpersonal conflicts between the bad bully and the good worker focuses on seemingly inherent qualities of individuals, and fails to explain the sheer brutality that ensues when bullying expands to include multiple people engaged in shunning, gossiping about, sabotaging, and making accusations and reports against a targeted worker. The collective bullying of a worker is called “mobbing,” and it typically ensues when a worker does or says something to annoy management, and management declares or demonstrates that the worker is unwanted. When that happens, it takes little effort to persuade the broader workforce to turn against the worker.

Just as Zimbardo talks about the slippery slope of evil that begins with the subject mindlessly taking the first step toward aggression through a seemingly minor action, when mobbing begins, workers are not initially encouraged to be cruel to the targeted worker. Far from it; they are told the worker must go, that it is the worker’s own doing, and the worker will be better off if they just move on. The first step onto the slippery slope of mobbing behavior thus often begins with something as simple as agreeing with management that the targeted worker must go — even if the decision to terminate the worker is clearly arbitrary or punitive or in some cases illegal, such as retaliation for reporting sexual harassment, discrimination or unlawful behavior.

Janice Harper: What the Stanford Prison Experiment Can Teach Us About the Workplace

I have seen a lot of articles on workplace bullying but they tend to focus on single perpetrators. This talks about mobbing, a phenomenon where multiple people bully a worker. This is not uncommon. Please go to the web site and read the full article. It’s worth your while.

James Pilant

From around the web –

From the web site, Mobbing and Bullying:

A recent study showed that about 35 percent of students who are bullied experience post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. This study echoes the findings of workplace mobbing research done by Dr. Heinz Leymann in the early 1980’s and has been validated many times by targeted individuals with whom I have worked. If we understand that bullying and mobbing attack the spiritual, psychological and emotional health of the individual as well as the physical, we also must consider that the damage done in an organization by this behavior goes beyond those directly involved.

From the web site, EndMobbing:

Mobbing is the targeting of persons in workplaces and schools by another individual or group of individuals in order to degrade, humiliate, and ultimately remove them from the workplace or school organization. This removal can be through firing, expulsions, or because the target can no longer tolerate the conditions and leaves of his or her own accord. The consequences for victims of mobbing are usually devastating. For its victims, mobbing affects physical heath, psychological and emotional health, relationships with family members, and, for workers, financial health. Mobbing also tends to erode a victim’s belief in a fair and just world. Mobbing is different from bullying because the workplace or school organizations are also involved, either through failure to act to protect their members when they have a responsibility to act, or through “blaming the victim” and joining the attack in progress on the victim, usually acting through official, bureaucratic channels. Secrecy and lack of transparency among organizational leaders and the presence of a hostile workplace culture are common indicators of mobbing-prone organizations.

And from the web site, The Hidden Evil’s Weblog:

Mobbing sometimes continues after individuals have left the organization. Although this can rarely be proven, slandering continues… This ongoing mobbing, even after the individuals are no longer connected with the organization, seems to justify the Mobbers previous behavior & upholds the organization s decision. They try to defend themselves by continuing to destroy the victim s reputation… Dianna: the next minute I thought, Howe can all these people just go along with this? Yet I would think, I can t blame these people. I know they have to go along with this for their own survival

Executives Have Vivid Imaginations

On March 13, 2013 By southwerkIn Opinion

Executives Have Vivid Imaginations

American Workers Lack Common Sense Skills, Executives Say

Workers lack communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creative skills executives say, according to a recent survey by the American Management Association. Turns out, bosses aren’t too excited about their underlings’ abilities, a prospect they’re getting more worried about considering such skills will be more important amid a changing business landscape, they say.

The number of executives rating their employees as below average increased across all four areas since the survey was last taken in 2010. Almost 20 percent of workers lack at least average creative skills, according to executives.

American Workers Lack Common Sense Skills, Executives Say

Yes, there has been a collapse in worker capabilities since that grand old time of American capability: 2010! That’s right. According to these executives (experts?), in the last three years, workers have become more incompetent. At a time, when the pool of available workers desperate for employment has been the highest since the great depression and they having the pick of the litter, the workers just aren’t as good.

Do you know what this means? It means these executive get together, talk a lot and gripe, then they take surveys. Next year, they may decide the food is bad or they don’t like the weather or they’ll go back to complaining about, that old favorite, “economic uncertainty.”

The idea that educational and judgment standards have dropped across the board in this country in three short years is simple nonsense. There is no change in the educational system, in hiring, or anything else, that would explain such a change. It’s just imagination, a particularly vivid imagination. What’s worse is that some people take this kind of survey nonsense seriously.

I tell you what, let’s ask the workers if their bosses have become less competent over the last three years. In fact let’s survey the workers the same way we do “executives” about basic skills and who has them. Then we could compare. That would be interesting statistics.

James Pilant

From around the web –

From the web site, Ideagency:

Obviously, the notion that Americans aren’t hard-working isn’t supported by the statistics. Beyond the numbers, however, my experience working with my own clients support Begala’s argument. The people I meet – whether they work in finance, manufacturing, retail, technology or health care – are not lazy. Far from it. Despite the lack of raises, bonuses, and other perks that have been severely cut back (or eliminated), the vast majority of employees I encounter are diligent, industrious, and proud of the work they do. I would imagine this holds true for most workers.

From the web site, Irregular Times Diaries:

Yesterday, Senator John McCain was giving a political speech in front of the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department, when he blasted American workers as lazy, ungrateful people incapable of doing a good day’s work

Senator McCain said it was necessary for farmers to employ illegal aliens because American workers are too lazy and wimpy. McCain thought that he was being clever when he rhetorically offered to pay anyone in the audience 50 dollars an hour to pick lettuce.

And from the web site, Understanding China, One Blog at a Time:

A commenter recently called me a malingerer, surprised by such harsh words, I rushed to m-w.com to see just what the word meant— malingerer “to pretend or exaggerate incapacity or illness (as to avoid duty or work)” Reflecting on those harsh words, as I scanned the interweb aimlessly, I came across the following photos. And although I would not say that I am a malingerer (in terms of feigning illness) one could argue that I am currently not devoting all of my neurons to the task of making money for any one company , thus the word loafer may be more appropriate..

Banks Poor Record Keeping Strikes Again

On March 12, 2013 By southwerkIn White Collar Crime

Debt collectors assisted by poor bank record keeping.

Banks Poor Record Keeping Strikes Again

Big Banks Face Investigation Into Whether They Helped Debt Collectors Pursue Faulty Judgments

The largest U.S. banks face a multi-state investigation into whether they helped debt collectors pursue faulty judgments against credit card customers, according to people familiar with the matter.
At issue is whether weak record-keeping by banks or a failure to pass accurate information to collection agencies harmed consumers.
The allegations against the banks echo those central to last year’s $25 billion federal-state mortgage settlement to resolve charges that the banks “robo-signed” documents and pursued foreclosures with faulty information.
This latest probe targets the same banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, said the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigations are continuing.
As with the mortgage cases, the investigation focuses on the banks’ poor paperwork and their weak tracking of the debts.

Big Banks Face Investigation Into Whether They Helped Debt Collectors Pursue Faulty Judgments

Poor record keeping or phrasing it differently, a reckless indifference to the property rights of mortgage holders, is in the news again. The banks originally used their record keeping to facilitate seizing properties they lacked proper title to. But that wasn’t the only damage being done. It would appear they sold to debt collectors, debts owed to them by the mortgage holders dependent on the very same records they misused for years. You would think they would have noticed there would be a problem but no, people don’t like to think about their mistakes and crimes. So, we have former bank clients who owe no money being hounded by debt collectors.

Has anything been done to discourage these practices? It seems the profit never ends and no one is penalized? Does that mean that the banks can preserve for use over the next decades? Are these going to become standard bank practices?

These practices of poor record keeping and lying affidavits are illegal but with scarcely any penalty imposed they are undeniably profitable.

Aren’t these what Milton Friedman referred to as the “rules of the game,” and if you play by those, isn’t everything okay, you know – free choice, freedom to choose?

I suppose the feds will follow the usual practice of fining the banks a pittance and then allowing them to choose who should receive monetary relief if anyone at all.

This may not discourage the banks from continuing these kinds of acts.

James Pilant

Banks Too Big for Justice

On March 11, 2013 By southwerkIn White Collar Crime

Banks Too Big for Justice

Eric Holder Admits Some Banks Are Just Too Big To Prosecute

When the Attorney General of the United States admits some banks are simply too big to prosecute, it might be time to admit we have a problem — and that goes for both the financial and justice systems.

Eric Holder made this rather startling confession in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, The Hill reports. It could be a key moment in the debate over whether to do something about the size and complexity of our biggest banks, which have only gotten bigger and more systemically important since the financial crisis.

“I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy,” Holder said, according to The Hill. “And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.”

Holder’s comments don’t come as a total surprise. His underlings had already made similar confessions to The New York Times last year, after they declined to prosecute HSBC for flagrant, years-long violations of money-laundering laws, out of fear that doing so would hurt the global economy. Lanny Breuer, formerly in charge of doling out the Justice Department’s wrist slaps to banks, told Frontline as much in the documentary “The Untouchables,” which aired in January.

Eric Holder Admits Some Banks Are Just Too Big To Prosecute

I have said several times before that there are two standards of justice in this country. If you had any doubts as to the truth of that statement, this should end them.

It is a sad day when certain corporations have essentially gained the powers and immunities of sovereign states.

What horrors, what crimes, are we yet to suffer, when the law cannot protect us?

James Pilant

Swartz Charged with Many Crimes to Force Guilty Plea

On March 11, 2013 By southwerkIn Politics

Swartz Charged with Many Crimes to Force Guilty Plea

Aaron Swartz: Eric Holder calls Aaron Swartz case “a good use of prosecutorial discretion.”

Earlier this morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Attorney General Eric Holder on topics ranging from drones to marijuana policy. About an hour into the oversight hearing, Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, asked Holder about the DOJ’s prosecution of Aaron Swartz, the programmer and Internet activist who committed suicide in January. Among other things, Swartz had been charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for using MIT’s computer network to unauthorizedly download millions of academic journal articles from a subscription database called JSTOR. He was facing a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison.

…

The DOJ may have only intended for Swartz to go to jail for a couple months. It’s clear, though, they would’ve had no problem with sending him away for a few years, too. I think Sen. Cornyn put it nicely: “If you’re an individual American citizen, and you’re looking at criminal charges being brought by the United States government, with all of the vast resources available to the government, it strikes me as disproportionate, and one that is basically being used inappropriately, to try to bully someone into pleading guilty to something that strikes me as rather minor.”

Holder claimed that the Department of Justice had conducted “a good examination” of the Swartz prosecution, and came away from it satisfied that there had been no prosecutorial misconduct. And maybe there wasn’t, if you’re judging the prosecutors on whether they deviated from standard DOJ practice. But there is a flaw in the system if the DOJ’s best route to get the sentence it’s looking for is to threaten defendants with disproportionate prison terms. That might be an effective prosecutorial tactic, but that’s not justice.

Aaron Swartz: Eric Holder calls Aaron Swartz case “a good use of prosecutorial discretion.”

So, a federal prosecutor stacks charges on what should be a single offense in order to get someone to plead guilty. Is that justice? Does it bear any resemblance to justice?

Swartz had a strong defense but by the stacking the charges the feds had placed him in a situation where if he lost he could serve fifty years.

It sounds to me that if you wanted to, as a federal prosecutor, you could force people to settle even if they were innocent – just stack the charges so that the risk of losing will put in jail for decades then offer a few months. You generate another trophy for that wall and don’t actually have to go to court and take your case to a jury.

That’s not justice, it’s just a use of overwhelming government resources to force the win.

Tell me, if I put you in a situation like Swartz where you could serve up to fifty years in prison and they offer you three to six months, and you have done nothing, would you take the deal?

Are you willing to rely on your innocence in court, and risk fifty years? You have to think about it, don’t you?

Let’s make it a little tougher. You can’t afford your own attorney and the government is willing to spend several million dollars and thousands of hours investigating you. Every corner of your life will be turned upside down. You’ll go bankrupt from fees. You probably won’t be able to hold a job because of the regular court appearances and your reputation just went through the shredder.

Do you still want to plead innocent or will you take the three months just to make it stop?

James Pilant

From around the web:

From the web site, Another Anthro Blog:

Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You’ll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.

There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future. Everything up until now will have been lost.

That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them? Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to children in the Global South? It’s outrageous and unacceptable.

From the web site, Gateways: A Dramaturgical Blog:

Not only was Swartz a computer science genius, he was also heavily devoted to freedom of information—which is where he found himself getting into trouble. His friend, journalist and science fiction novelist Cory Doctorow, says he was a “full-time, uncompromising, reckless and delightful shit-disturber.” His first target was PACER.gov, a website that provides court documents to the public for a small fee (about 8 cents per page). In 2008, Swartz, funded by his own money, single-handedly moved the information on to a public website. He released over 18 million pages, an estimated total value of 1.5 million dollars. The FBI investigated the situation, but no charges were filed against him.

Shortly after, Swartz founded DemandProgress.org, a website devoted to internet activism. The website was integral in taking down the Stop Online Piracy and the Protect IP Acts of 2011, two bills which allowed the government more control over what could and could not be posted and shared on the internet (they deserve their own blog post—next week, perhaps).

And from the web site, Justrecently’s Weblog:

What got him into conflict with the judicial system, after some earlier and less significant jostles, was breaking into M.I.T. computer networks in 2010 and 2011, to access JSTOR and to download documents from there. It was apparently meant to be a demonstration, to underline his case that documents like JSTOR’s should be freely available. It had long been argued that such documents should be free because they are produced at public expense, writes the New York Times. The NYT has a detailed account of Swartz’ JSTOR activity. The indictment says that JSTOR’s servers were brought down by his action on several occasions, Wired wrote in September 2012.

It’s apparently a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) which was applied by federal prosecutors. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in limiting reach of the CFAA, said that violations of employee contract agreements and websites’ terms of service – crucial in Swartz’ case, apparently, at least if up to the prosecutors – were better left to civil lawsuits, also according to Wired. But this ruling wasn’t binding for Massachusetts, and the prosecutors insisted that their charges against Swartz should go on. The maximum penalty – potentially – could have amounted to 35 years in prison, and a million USD penalty. The chief prosecutor in charge was Steve Heymann, who had previously brought hacker Albert Gonzales into jail with a 20-year term.

Two Standards of Justice

On March 10, 2013 By southwerkIn White Collar Crime

Two Standards of Justice

Senator Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren: Banks Get Wrist Slaps While Drug Dealers Get Jail

During a Senate Banking Committee hearing about money laundering, Warren (D-Mass.) grilled officials from the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency about why HSBC, which recently paid $1.9 billion to settle money laundering charges, wasn’t criminally prosecuted and shut down in the U.S. Nor were any individuals from HSBC charged with any crimes, despite the bank confessing to laundering billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels and rogue regimes like Iran and Libya over several years.

Defenders of the Justice Department say that a criminal conviction could have been a death penalty for the bank, causing widespread damage to the economy. Warren wanted to know why the death penalty wasn’t warranted in this case.

“They did it over and over and over again across a period of years. And they were caught doing it, warned not to do it and kept right on doing it, and evidently making profits doing it,” Warren said of HSBC. “How many billions of dollars do you have to launder for drug lords and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution like this?”

Elizabeth Warren: Banks Get Wrist Slaps While Drug Dealers Get Jail

We could start by marveling at the idea that any rational human being could contemplate a fine as a penalty for international subversion? This subversion involved laundering money so it could be used anywhere in the economic system, thus, making it available to pay for bribes, drug smuggling, murder and kidnapping.

We could wander casually over to our second problem which is bankers, especially the international and investment variety, and wonder what made them so special? It is a simple matter to document one law for them and one law for the rest of us. That is the why Ms. Warrent’s example hits home. We are living by two sets of laws, one harsh and punitive and another for the banks.

Let us conclude with out third problem, where do get off allowing banks to attack foreign governments? Can there be any doubt in anyone’s mind that laundering billions in drug cartel money is the equivalent of a direct attack on the nation of Mexico and a more minor, by comparison, attack on this country, the United States?

It might be better if instead of thinking of the HSBC bank as a financial institution but more as a hostile foreign power willing to exploit our financial system for profit. I believe that is a more accurate reading of how it views its status in the world.

I don’t think Mexico feels safer after we fined HSBC. They may not feel that we have sent a message to those who would empower those who actively kidnap and murder in their country?

How would you feel about this if you lived in Mexico? Does it make you feel secure in American protection anywhere on earth?

James Pilant

Big Business and Government

On March 9, 2013 By southwerkIn International

Big Business and Government

Global Ethics Forum: Power, Inc.: The Epic Rivalry Between Big Business & Government – YouTube

Garten Rothkopf CEO David Rothkopf talks about the conflict between big business and government.

“He explains that we are in a crisis. There has been a net loss of jobs in this country over the last ten years. Social mobility is declining. Inequality is increasing. Our democratic system is under threat by massive corporate power because of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizen’s United that perverts the right of free speech to include money.

What gives the average citizen a voice? that would be the government. Government is a leveler.

Historically the battle between church and state was the last big battle on the same scale as this one. It was not really a battle over religion. It was an economic battle – who had the authority to tax.

The one country that has done the most to empower corporations is the United States. This country is born of the industrial era.

Even early on corporations had an outsize influence. In the Dartmouth college case, the Supreme Court decided that states could not revoke charters once granted essentially giving corporations immortality.

Later we saw the courts use the 14^th amendement for its first fifty years arguing the corporations should have the same rights as people. Yet people are not immortal. People do not possess legions of lawyers to get laws passed.

Today, most of the value bearing instruments are created by the private sector mainly derivatives. Only about five major powers are able to have currencies on their own.

Nations unable to compete with corporations in terms of power should be considered semi-states.

Markets don’t promote competition (read Adam Smith) efficiency is achieved by scale.

The current size of corporations is larger than could have been imagined in the past. Fundamental shifts in power are occurring.

More than half people on the ground in our last two wars were private contractors

In America – the political process is corrupted by money and Internationally – no institutions capable of dealing with this issue exist.

We need to ask ourselves – What produces the kind of society we aspire to?

As the economic center of gravity moves so does the intellectual center. Right now that center is moving to Asia.

Government is the only way the average person has a seat at the table. ”

(Forgive my poor summary – I wrote notes as it went along.)

James Pilant

ExxonMobil, American Company or Independent Entity?

On March 8, 2013 By southwerkIn Corpoorate Social Responsibility

ExxonMobil, American Company or Independent Entity?

Global Ethics Forum: Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power – YouTube

(WordPress ate every word I wrote on this post – let me see what I can resuscitate.)

Steve Coll, speaking before the Global Ethics Forum, explains that ExxonMobil while based in the United States often behaves as a foreign entity.

James Pilant

A Challenge for My Students

On March 2, 2013 By southwerkIn Teaching

A Challenge for My Students (and other faculty should they so desire!)

My students are well aware by this time that I am a mystery buff. I love solving television mysteries and real life ones as well. The video below is from You Tube and it features a Miss Marple mystery. These are my favorite mysteries because you have all the clues you need to solve it by the time she arrives at the explanation. I haven’t solved all of the Miss Marple stories but certainly more than 2/3rds. This one beat me.

So, my challenge is, “Can you solve the mystery before our heroine explains the outcome?” You are, of course, on your honor not to cheat. So, don’t be going to one of those spoiler web sites or reading the novel before watching the program. You can do what I like to do in these cases which is to pause the film and think about the evidence at hand. Television watching appeals to the unconscious more than the conscious and if you just let it flow, the “little grey cells” (another Agatha Christie character) never get to operate at full power.

This exercise builds your power of reasoning and deduction known by the classic word, ratiocination.

If you solve it, make a comment and I will post the winners later.

James Pilant

P.S. I am going to give you a clue that I did not have. I did not figure out the murder because I could not conceive that the murderer(s) could be so evil. And I was revolted when I found out what had been done. jp

Agatha Christie’s Marple: S1E1 – The Body In The Library – YouTube

Pennsylvania’s Revolving Door

On March 2, 2013 By southwerkIn Business Ethics

Pennsylvania’s Revolving Door

Fracking and the Revolving Door in Pennsylvania | Public Accountability Initiative

Numerous top government officers and environmental regulators in Pennsylvania have either left their public jobs for careers in the oil and gas industry or come to government from the industry.

The revolving door trend in Pennsylvania raises questions about whether regulators are serving the public interest or private industry interests in their oversight of fracking.

The following are major findings from the report:

Pennsylvania’s previous three governors have strong ties to the natural gas industry. Tom Ridge’s firms benefited from a $900,000 contract to lobby for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, Mark Schweiker joined a lobbying firm with a Marcellus Shale practice, and Ed Rendell is a partner in a private equity firm invested in fracking services companies and recently lobbied on behalf of driller Range Resources. Current governor Tom Corbett also has strong ties to the industry – he received more than $1 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry and previously worked as a lawyer for Waste Management, which is active in the Marcellus Shale.

Every Secretary of Environmental Protection since the DEP was created has had ties to the natural gas industry. Jim Seif is now a principal and energy consultant at Ridge Global LLC, one of former governor Ridge’s firms that lobbied for the Marcellus Shale Coalition; David Hess is now a lobbyist at Crisci Associates and has gas industry clients; Kathleen McGinty has served on the boards of two energy companies, is managing director of a consulting firm that is part of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, and is a partner in former Governor Rendell’s private equity firm; John Hanger is now special counsel to a law firm that represents every segment of the natural resources industry; and Michael Krancer is former general counsel at a utility that relies on natural gas and a former partner at a law firm member of the Marcellus Shale Coalition.

Fracking and the Revolving Door in Pennsylvania | Public Accountability Initiative

You should read the whole report – here. (pdf. file)

There are many people who find this practice of moving from the government to private industry and back again to not be a problem. I don’t get it. How is it moral to develop expertise in industry wrong doing to use it against the government later? How is it moral to work for companies that are heavily dependent on the government for profits, and then switch to government service with every prospect of returning to an extremely lucrative salary with that same industry?

Why don’t we just call it, “slow bribery?” You don’t get the money up front, you get in exchange for services provided over time.

This is how regulatory capture works. This is how public servants can cash in. This is how influence is sold for hard cash.

James Pilant