WORKPLACE BULLYING : News

Union urges zero tolerance on workplace bullyingStaff and agencies guardian.co.uk, Monday October 02 2006 12:08 BST The union Amicus complained today that bosses were failing to do enough to tackle workplace bullying.

The manufacturing union said that bullying at work could "destroy" lives and urged companies to take a zero tolerance approach to the problem.

Research among 300 workers showed that only 2% of employers had a policy of zero tolerance towards bullying, while most had never studied the impact of the issue on productivity.

Amicus claims that bullying costs industry an estimated £2bn a year in sick pay, staff turnover and loss of production, while one in 10 workers said they had been bullied.

Derek Simpson, the union's general secretary, said: "Our project aims to tackle this problem in partnership with employers by taking a zero tolerance approach to bullying from the outset.

"One of the most effective ways of dealing with bullying behaviour is to nip it in the bud and this often involves dealing with situations informally before they go too far and real damage is done.

"We will be taking these findings to workplaces across the country and we hope employers will join us in spreading dignity in the workplace."

The DTI has given its support to the campaign. Trade and industry secretary, Alistair Darling, said: "Bullying at work is a big problem and employers need to be aware of it.

"It corrodes employees' self-confidence and self-esteem and leads to a hostile working environment. It's bad for staff and it's bad for business.

"People who feel harassed or victimised can't do their job properly, and businesses that do not tackle bullying suffer from days lost through stress and illness, decreased productivity and damage to their reputation."

**Staff and agencies guardian.co.uk, Monday October 02 2006 12:08 BST

Creativity and the Kerala Intellectual - RandomTthoughts

Kerala intellectuals are extremely short-sighted, and are mere creatures of emotion that crave for recognition. They are masters of hypocrisy.

They are all secularists, of course; but dare not give up any caste tag that they might have suffixed to the name , if it is a forward caste.

Again, none of their children get married to a lower caste. As with all hypocrites, what they preach is for others, not for themselves.

They repeat anything that they catch from outsiders, parrot-like. Be it communism, secularism, environment or human rights, they shout themselves hoarse repeating and chewing others’ excreta. In the past 60 years, there has not been a single original thought from Kerala.

Like other Keralites falling for money scams, our intellectuals do not realise that they are being taken for a ride by the thinkers from outside, that they [the outside thinkers and thoughts] have their own mercenary agenda.

Anything new is opposed by our intellectuals quoting some outdated idea or the other from outside. That they still swear by Marxism after the rest of the world has laughed it off is an example.

About Orissa, they just sing anti-Hindu because it is the in-thing, the traditionally accepted mode. It is easy to get published that way. They know that the issue is created by mercenary missionaries from Kerala, that these nuns and priests are there on a job only, not because of any calling, that these missionaries like the foreign funds more than they love the tribals. But our intellectuals feign sleep.

However, the Kerala Hinduists are also fools. The RSS philosophy is the Aryan Varna philosophy. After they chant Hinduist and bring in a Hindu rule in Kerala, Kerala Hinduists would find that everything is closed to them because no Keralite is a Brahmin, Kshatriya or Vaisya. All Keralites are only Soodras and Mlechas. In A Hinduist Kerala, things would all belong to the Tamil and other Brahmins. The few Namboodiris have almost all married from other castes, in the Communist environment here; and have lost their Varna.

The Hinduists might consider whether it is good for them to look up to the idiotic, cow-butt kissing North Indian Hindu. The Hinduist mode came here at all only because of the stupid Christian clergy that want to gobble everything up for themselves, and the Wahabi Moslem sections that have gone mad in their own avarice. If only the Christian and Moslem clergy and business would let others also be, things would be quiet around Kerala. A greedy Bishop’s Nilakkal joke created the Hindu re-awakening in Kerala.

Let us remember that all these are foreign philosophies to true Keralites, and shun them.

AN ITALIAN JOKE

As we express indignation at the Italian insolence, we ignore that the common Italian in the streets thinks of India as being ruled from 2004 by an Italian, more or less after the imperial fashion. The Italian press saluted the Congress victory in May 2004. “Italian Sonia Gandhi triumphs,” trumpeted Italy’s leading daily Corriere della Sera in a front-page headline. “Sonia Gandhi: an Italian triumphs in India,” echoed the headline in the leftist La Repubblica. “Against all expectations, there is now little doubt that the Italian from Orbassano will become India’s next Prime Minister,” said La Repubblica on the day the results came out in India. As per Italian constitution, an Italy-born retains the citizenship even when he takes one more.

No sooner had Manmohan Singh’s cabinet taken charge than the Italian Aritozo Chamber of Commerce and Toscani Promotion Authority rushed to India to grab the Indian market. And in this game-plan, the communist government of West Bengal came forward with all its help. During the first few months, five teams of delegates visited West Bengal on different grounds to finalise things. The Italian Consul General for Kolkota, Augustino Pinna was present in all the meetings with the government and with different Chambers of Commerce. It was known that this as well as the Left’s support to the UPA was only an extension of the Surjeet family’s international business relations with an Italian family.

One of the first heads of government that visited India after the UPA government assumed office was naturally from Italy. 15 significant agreements were signed then. These included contracting the very costly Chandrayaan to Italian companies, and ‘preservation and restoration’ of our antiques and heritage artefacts after taking them to Italy. Subsequently, minor Italian ministers like Sen Gianni Vernetti, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Antonio Marzano, Minister for Productive Activities etc have been visiting India many times yearly to smoothen matters for Italian business.

The Joint Commission for economic cooperation with Italy had been there from 1976 soon after the commencement of the Emergency. The Commission used to meet once every 2-3 years. However, regular annual meetings since 2005 signalled a sea change. From 2004, trade with Italy increased by 50% annually. The Commerce ministry has pursued importing from Italy with missionary zeal. An unstable economy like Italy is now India’s most important trading partner in the EU. The Italian economy owes to India for survival.

Under these circumstances, one cannot fault Italy on its anxiety to ensure that things go properly on in India. Fascist imperialism now works in ways more sophisticated than the times of Il Duce.
======================================
Daily Pioneer Editorial of 31st August 2008:
The Pioneer Edit Desk
We don't need the Holy Roman Umpire

In summoning the Indian Ambassador and urging New Delhi to take "decisive action" to curb 'anti-Christian violence' in Orissa, the Government of Italy has breached diplomatic propriety and caused a public relations disaster of enormous magnitude. The violence, while entirely undesirable, is scarcely a one-sided slaughter of the innocents, though a country with a history of throwing religious minorities to the lions would probably be hard put to tell the difference. The killing of a Hindu monk and his associates, and the retaliatory murder of Christian and non-Christian workers in church institutions in Orissa, are crimes that Indian authorities must act against and punish expeditiously. It is an internal matter of India, in no way suggestive of state-sponsored attacks on any community or religious groups and requires no interference or comment from the self-appointed high priests in Rome. In reality, the gratuitous actions of the Italian Government represent a once-proud society's increasing irrelevance and political downfall. The Italian Government is heavily dependent on neo-fascists who are promoting a xenophobic, anti-immigrant agenda. Indeed, the new Mayor of Rome is publicly greeted with straight-arm salutes and enthusiastic cries of "Duce! Duce!" -- a noun last used to describe Italy's comic-book wartime dictator, Benito Mussolini. Italy's economic collapse has been sharpened by its establishment's congenital suspicion of globalisation and foreign investment. Acquisition -- and thereby rescue -- of the country's bigger but increasingly beleaguered business corporations is actively discouraged. Gripped by paranoia, the Italian political class is battling phantoms -- the newest being the so-called Christian persecution in India. Not only is it doing no favour to Indian Christians -- who surely would not welcome a client-guarantor relationship with an alien Government -- it has also seriously jeopardised Italy's goodwill among the Indian middle class.


The Italian Government's poor diplomacy follows the Pope's condemnation of bloodletting in Orissa. As the head of a denominational enterprise, which is what the Vatican is, Pope Benedict XVI is perhaps justified in raising questions about the security of Christians everywhere. However, in the immediate context of India, he is choosing to look at the issue only selectively. In Orissa, like elsewhere in India, Christian evangelists -- largely from Pentecostal and Baptist groups in the United States but sometimes from Catholic orders as well -- look upon local populations as a market, and converts as market share. Some of them are engaged not in any attempt to genuinely win adherents to Jesus's faith, but to denigrate nativist cultures and religious traditions and convert by inducement. In Orissa, the recent trouble began when a Hindu monk who opposed such practices was murdered. He was targeted by a consortium of Christian fundamentalists and Maoists, united in taking on a common enemy. It may seem an unlikely alliance but is no different, in its theological inspirations, from the bogus gospel of Liberation Theology preached by renegade Catholic priests and Communist guerrillas in South America in the 1970s. Pope Benedict, like his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, opposed Liberation Theology in the New World, but appears to see it as a fair strategy for 'harvesting souls' in India. Both the Vatican's theological hypocrisy and double standards and the Italian Government's diplomatic outrage need to be countered. The philosophy underlying the Pope's arguments can be answered by Hindu religious leaders. As for the jejune Italian Government, a snub from the Ministry of External Affairs should be enough.
===========================
Italy govt to summon Indian envoy over Orissa attacks
Published on Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 20:07