Is Scott Rudin the next Harvey Weinstein? 5 ways the Rudin situation follows the workplace abuse playbook

This month, Hollywood and Broadway are pulling back the curtain on what's really going on behind closed doors when it comes to worker dignity. And producer Scott Rudin, the name behind "The Social Network" and "No Country For Old Men," is the next mogul to fall from (some) power thanks to collective action — in this case, workers reporting their stories to the media and literally taking to the streets in solidarity in April 22's March on Broadway.

The story broke on April 7 with Tatiana Siegel's "Everyone Just Knows He's An Absolute Monster": Scott Rudin's Ex-Staffers Speak Out on Abusive Behavior" from The Hollywood Reporter. As the silence continued to break, and unions demanded action, Rudin eventually apologized.

But advocates demanded more than lip service. They demanded consequences. They demanded that those who've stayed silent for too long stand up to this behavior to save lives.

Finally on April 17 and April 21, Rudin announced he'll no longer be an active...

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How one manager pushed out a competent medical insurance analyst — and the company did nothing

The late Congressman John Lewis talked about the importance of saying and doing something when you see something that's not right — getting into good trouble. “I fought too long and too hard against discrimination based on race and color not to fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” he said. “He (President Obama) is sending a powerful message that discrimination in any form has no place in a democratic society. It also gives hope to the 9 million LBGT Americans and their loved ones who have had to bear the pain and sorrow of rejection, loss, and shame with limited means to make their voices heard.”

 

 


In 2007, a healthcare organization hired me as a military medical insurance analyst, a position I would stay in for 12 years. (I had the same position for 20 years in a different healthcare organization.) For those 12 years, I received excellent job evaluations year after year from my previous...

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My supervisor confessed to abuse of power and sexual predation; he advanced — and I changed careers

By Sarah Charley

When faced with extraordinary evidence pointing towards an uncomfortable truth, my former employer responded very strangely.

“I had no idea how persistent his abuse was to have dampened your spirits so much,” the general manager replied to an email about my supervisor’s behavior. “I've spoken with [the senior staff] and they all agree with your assessment of [the supervisor’s] behavior towards you. I feel embarrassingly oblivious about this, but more importantly like we (as a whole, as your friends) didn't do enough to stop it from happening.”

At the time of this exchange, I was 23 and pursuing my dream of being a guide and outdoor educator at a rafting company on the American River in California. My supervisor, however, had turned this dream into a traumatic and disorienting nightmare. In his own words:

“[…] For a period of 4 months in 2012, I used Sarah Charley for sex, and treated her terribly […] [This is]...

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How you can shine in your power after horrible leadership

“Narcissists love to get your reaction. And as soon as they do, you are handing power away,” says narcissistic abuse expert Melanie Tonia Evans in her article 5 Steps To Ignoring A Narcissist Who Tries To Punish You.

The solution, she says, is totally ignoring them — giving them no energy and no response.

Here’s why: the narcissist has insecurities so intense that he or she creates an image “to be a buffer between the narcissist and his or her inner wounds,” says Evans. “This entity, known as Ego (False Self), is running the narcissist’s emotions and life and feeds from pain.” So when you injure his or her False Self by standing in your power and triggering his or her insecurities, you become the object of the narcissist’s wounds.

The False Self feeds off pain, while the True Self (even if it’s still imprisoned by internal trauma) feeds off love, authenticity, and truth. “Because the narcissist is...

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The key to advocating for healthy workplaces

A few years into my advocacy for workplace abuse legislation, I co-led a small business. I quickly realized that knowing what not to do didn’t necessarily translate well into what to do. What were best practices for bringing out the best in employees? How could I work to help workers feel fulfilled and strong? What did I need to gain self-awareness of to prevent a toxic culture? These questions led me to dive into what it took to create a healthy workplace.

The toxic culture
In his book The Bully’s Trap, Andrew Faas dissects the cultures that lead to abuse in the first place. He says that in toxic cultures, employers see employees as expendable. When employers consider workers a means to an end rather than associates, that’s exploitation. Here are some key factors in a toxic culture:

  • Higher-ups are out of touch. They focus on short-term results at the expense of long-term performance. They focus on power to bring about those short-term...
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The law isn't keeping up with the times

In recent years, we’ve seen thousands take to the streets to defend women’s rights in women’s marches around the globe. We’ve seen our social media threads fill up with the hashtag #MeToo, standing up to sexual harassment and assault. We’ve seen protest after protest demanding that #BlackLivesMatter.

We’ve seen hundreds of thousands stand up to abuse of power. Yet the law hasn’t kept up.

Women, Hispanics, and African-Americans are the most likely to be targeted in this epidemic.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects these groups from discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. So why are these groups more likely to endure verbal abuse, sabotage, and other types of threatening, intimidating, and humiliating behavior?

While important legislation, this act only protects those who can connect their membership in the group to the abuse. So those workers whose abusers are in the same protected class may be...

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A Massachusetts nurse deals with a series of abuses with a new director

I’ve been a registered nurse in Massachusetts since 2004. I worked for one company for six years. I really enjoyed my job and looked forward to going into work every day. I’d been promoted to a senior nurse position and looked forward to the new responsibilities and challenges associated with this job. At this time, we had a new director of nurses who was different from any other past directors of nurses: she was condescending, arrogant, and had a huge chip on her shoulder. She never even took the time to interview me for this new position or meet me, which I thought was strange.

When I began my new position as a senior nurse, I looked forward to working together with the other fellow senior nurses to improve patient care. But as soon as I started my position, the bullying began — from two senior nurses who felt it was their duty to subject me to a sort of “hazing” and harassment to see if I met their standard for this position. Some of the ways in...

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Police officer endured series of abuses for eight years after management error

Boston Police Officer Brenda James began her career in the male-dominated, dangerous field in 1994. Her district was changing, becoming more inclusive and diverse. The police department adopted a different model of policing — “community policing” — developing partnerships and relationships with community members. Officer James was assigned to help carry out that mission. She was recognized for the work she did as a community service officer and then became a juvenile officer, a liaison between the police department and community – school officials, clergy, business-owners, social service agencies, and programs. She was involved in roundtable discussions, interventions, mediation, individual educational plans for students at risk, court advocacy for juvenile delinquents, and relationship-building with probation. She became certified to mediate and earned a masters degree in criminal justice from Boston University.

The Backstory
In 2010, the Boston Police...

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One advocate says abusing employees should be a crime

The abuse started out at what I thought would be the perfect job. The pay, responsibility, and opportunities to advance were all there. What I didn’t plan on happening was that it would all crash down around me leading to over nine months of legal proceedings and numerous health issues due to depression. I guess you could say that according to the lawyers, I won my workman’s comp claim. But what did I really win? I was out of a job, and the monsters I worked for were still free to do this again and again and again to the next person who stood up and said what was happening was wrong.

I should have seen the writing on the wall about six months after I started. My manager was in way over her head and stood me up for countless meetings when I was in the office. When we did finally meet, there were all the bright discussions around what my plans were for the future. I had even drafted documents outlining how my position could progress into one with greater responsibilities,...

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A corrections officer suffered from repeat bullying after domestic violence

I was married to a coworker. We were both employed at a prison as corrections officers.
 
After we divorced, he broke in and held me hostage at gunpoint for 12 hours. He beat, raped, and sodomized me, then tried to kill me by choking me. He put the gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed, and he panicked and fled the house.
 
Then he tried to kill himself by overdosing. The police found him hours later. He was arrested at the hospital after being treated.
 
After he was indicted for the crimes against me, I asked for a domestic violence transfer to another facility many miles away from him, as is the states policy on such matters.
 
Instead, they refused me, and I was bullied by coworkers who took his side.
 
Supposedly if you are convicted of a felony, you forfeit your pension. The state allowed him to retire and collect his pension while he was in prison.
 
Finally after being harassed repeatedly, I was moved to another facility...
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