Bullying in the Arts: Vocation, Exploitation and Abuse of Power

Bullying in the Arts: Vocation, Exploitation and Abuse of Power by Anne-Marie Quigg from OvercomeBullying.org. A downloadable pdf review of a book based on Quigg's 10 year study of arts organizations in the United Kingdom.

"The interesting aspect of the work is that although many people think that people working in, say dance, music and theatre have a wonderful time at work, the evidence I gathered shows that cultural sector workers have reported the highest incidence of bullying of any single employment sector in the country," says Dr Quigg. "It was a bit of a shock to the system. There is little doubt that bullying in the workplace is on the rise, particularly in the current economic climate, but I found that two in five respondents reported being targets of workplace bullies, and many more had witnessed bullying incidents at first hand." "There was compelling evidence that many managers in the sector were not trained to deal with complaints of bullying, or dealt with them by promoting the bully." The initial research was carried out in theatres and arts centres in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland with the support of the trade union BECTU, and the number of respondents who reported being a target of bullies is a higher proportion than recorded by researchers investigating the police, the army and the National Health Service. "Half of the arts workers had heard about bullying from a colleague," said Anne-Marie. "There was compelling evidence that many managers in the sector were not trained to deal with complaints of bullying, or dealt with them by promoting the bully." Download the pdf review by Piers Jackson.