The National Workplace Bullying Coalition is a left-of-center organization that seeks to implement more stringent government regulations against workplace bullying. Much of its work appears to have taken place in 2014 and 2015, the first two years of its existence. The organization appeared to go entirely dormant between 2018 and 2020. ^[1]

In late 2020, the Coalition again became active, creating a template bill called the Dignity at Work Act (DAWA). The legislation, drafted by the Coalition, seeks to implement sweeping left-of-center anti-bullying regulation at the federal level. ^[2]

History

The National Workplace Bullying Coalition was founded in 2014 by Beverly Peterson, a filmmaker and professor at Montclair State University. ^[3] Building off what had been a loose collection of mainly New Jersey and Pennsylvania-based academics, the Coalition launched its national campaign with an April 2014 conference at Rutgers School of Law in Newark, New Jersey. ^[4]  Speakers included former U.S. Representative Mike Honda (D-CA), legal professionals, academics, and representatives from the left-of-center AFL-CIO and Communications Workers of America (CWA) labor unions. ^[5]

The next year, in October 2015, the Coalition hosted its second “Workplace Bullying Awareness Conference” at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. No national politicians or organized labor representatives attended the conference. The keynote speakers included two state legislators, one from California and the other from Tennessee. ^[6]

Activities

The National Workplace Bullying Coalition lists few activities on its website. The Coalition worked with a state of Tennessee task force to create a template anti-bullying policy that was required by Tennessee state law. Aside from a petition to the Trump administration’s Department of Labor that was last signed in 2017, none of the listed Coalition activities took place after 2015. ^[7]

Accordingly, the Coalition appeared to go dormant for several years after 2017. The organization’s blog was last updated in 2017, which appears to be around the last time the website itself was updated to include information from the Coalition directly. Some of the blog posts prior to this period took on a distinctly political character, with the Coalition claiming that former President Donald Trump was sexist and that his election would increase bullying in schools. ^[8] In January 2020, the website still encouraged visitors to pre-order the Coalition’s book, Stand Up, Speak Out Against Workplace Bullying, which was published in April 2018. ^[9]

The Dignity at Work Act

Late in 2020, the organization resurfaced and updated the website with COVID-19 information for workers, but it did not publish any original content, instead linking to the website for the Dignity at Work Act (DAWA). Created by the National Workplace Bullying Coalition, the DAWA seeks to implement sweeping left-of-center anti-bullying regulation at the federal level. ^[10]

The act proposes to outlaw workplace bullying and establish a government agency to enforce the regulations, claiming that employers need to be forced to change and enforce harassment policies. The DAWA also claims that other avenues, like civil litigation, fail to benefit victims of workplace bullying. ^[11]

The Coalition appears to be depending on a state-based coalition to pass the DAWA, encouraging supporters of the bill to contact their federal representatives in addition to introducing the bill themselves on the state level. The National Workplace Bullying Coalition also appears to be seeking the support of left-of-center labor unions, publishing a “Labor Union Toolkit” to advise union members on how to pressure organizations to back the DAWA. ^{[12] [13]}

Leadership

The president of the National Workplace Bullying Coalition is Jerry Carbo, a professor of management at Shippensburg University. Carbo has worked at the university for his entire career, beginning as an associate professor in 2008. ^[14]

Founding president Beverly Peterson still works with the Coalition as a board member emeritus. ^[15]

Finances

Since 2014, the Coalition has filed Form 990-N with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) since its founding, always reporting less than $50,000 in gross receipts. ^[16]