(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[19. January 2007] LO started its long-planned and comprehensive campaign against workplace bullying this week. Never has the employee organization had a lesser credibility in just such work.
Ingunn Yssen made a bold choice when she decided to give her resignation to the country's largest newspaper while delivering it to the country's largest employee organization. Without her already impressive resume and many former colleagues who would describe Yssen as capable, the stunt could quickly become a labor suicide. The procedure was in violation of the rules of working life for how conflicts should be handled, and both as a manager and employee should have done what she could to resolve the matter internally first. Yssen's play could have been left as both untidy and unreasonable if Valla had complained that Yssen was experiencing the situation as she does and then insisted on treating it in accordance with the processes that follow from the Working Environment Act. Instead, LO leader Gerd-Liv Valla has ensured that her former close associate is given the status as a warning in a corporate culture that does not reward criticism.
The country's most powerful woman has effectively demonstrated by all the rules of art how not to deal with difficult personnel matters. In affection, she called for a press conference where she arrogantly and visibly nervously rejected all charges from Yssen. Everything here, she confirmed by far on Ysen's version, totally ignoring what an employer can and should do in such cases. Valla turned out to be a person of power and politician, but not a good employer, as she continued to choose an entertainment program as the only television performance and when she published her note with strong accusations as a thank-you to Yssen. For this she can probably be sentenced in court. However, this will not be the best conclusion to this case.
Now Valla should let the guns rest and promise employee interviews, work environment surveys and a review of their own routines. She is not just a politician. She is an employer, and also the employer who also represents the employees. Valla has proven that she is not a cat, but a rottweiler. As she must be, when she fights for workers' rights. But when employers want to be rottweilers, the working life is brutalized.
