(A) Bullying is another form of harassment that is unacceptable in the village. It applies to all employees, consultants, volunteers, visitors, and elected officials. The principles set out in this policy are intended to apply to any context involving the village. (Refer to § 33.008 for the village’s definition of BULLYING).
(B) Bullying may be intentional or unintentional. However, it must be noted that when an allegation of bullying is made, the intention of the alleged bully is irrelevant, and will not be given consideration if disciplinary action is administered. As in sexual harassment, it is the effect of the behavior on the individual that is important. Bullying is not limited to actions from employer to employee. Any village employee or official can suffer from bullying.
(C) Bullying may be verbal, nonverbal, physical, nonphysical, and social. Below are some examples of bullying. However, the village reserves the right to include other actions if it is deemed necessary:
(1) Slandering, ridiculing, gossip, or maligning a person or his or her family; persistent name calling that is hurtful, insulting, or humiliating; using a person as the butt of jokes; and abusive and offensive remarks/nicknames;
(2) Pushing, shoving, kicking, poking, tripping, assault, or threat of physical assault; damage to a person’s work area or property;
(3) Nonverbal threatening gestures; glances that can convey threatening messages;
(4) Socially or physically excluding or disregarding a person in work-related activities;
(5) Persistent singling out of one person;
(6) Shouting or raising voice at an individual in public or in private;
(7) Not allowing the person to speak or express himself or herself (i.e., ignoring or interrupting);
(8) Public humiliation in any form;
(9) Constant criticism on matters unrelated or minimally related to the person’s job performance or description;
(10) Public reprimands;
(11) Repeatedly accusing someone of errors that cannot be documented;
(12) Deliberately interfering with personal belongings; and
(13) Manipulating the ability of someone to do his or her work (i.e., overloading, under-loading, withholding information, assigning meaningless tasks, setting deadlines that cannot be met, giving deliberately ambiguous instructions).
(Ord. 1447, passed 10-20-2009; Ord. 1473, passed 12-7-2010; Ord. passed 1-1-2019)