IT MIGHT BE FUNNY ON TV’S “THE OFFICE” BUT NOT ON THE JOB AT EWU

Eastern Washington University Local 931 members have asked the EWU Board of Trustees to remove a top manager from supervising staff or students in the wake of an outrageous “permissive bullying” incident last month that left an employee humiliated and co-workers shocked.

The top manager at Eastern Washington University’s Career Services department handed out a ceramic “F” to an employee at an April 2 staff meeting and branded him a failure in front of co-workers.

It seemed like something you’d see on the TV show “The Office.” But it was all too real to the employees, members of Local 931.

The recipient of the “F” was Hispanic. The singling out of that employee for ridicule seemed like a throwback to a less-enlightened time when minorities routinely faced such on-the-job harassment.

“Let us be reminded that diversity with discrimination is meaningless,” Local 931 President Mary Jo Van Bemmel told trustees May 9.

Van Bemmel and about 20 other members showed up at the trustees’ meeting on the Cheney campus in their red Local 931 shirts.

Van Bemmel said everyone deserves a second chance. But after a “climate review” investigation, the offending manager is now being given another chance “to once again humiliate and belittle students and staff, as before,” Van Bemmel said.

“Today, we respectfully ask the Board of Trustees to see that this individual is not allowed to manage or supervise staff or students…,” Van Bemmel said. “Permissive bullying of staff and students is not right.”

She pleaded with the trustees to tell EWU administrators “that hiring employees from diverse backgrounds is not a defense for then abusing them publicly.”

The trustees responded they felt the incident had been resolved.

But the union will pursue other avenues of justice.

“We will be working with the affected employees on Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints and the local members will discuss other steps to take,” said WFSE/AFSCME Field Representative Rick Nesbitt.