AT last someone in Glenree House has blown the whistle on what many of the staff believe to be an oppressive and bullying management ethos within the Department of Agriculture in Newry.
I saw it at its most simple level, when in the days following the opening of the new office reception area, a mandarin from headquarters in Belfast was being given the guided tour by a Newry manager.
They stopped at the reception desk where a veterinary officer was in conversation with the clerk on duty.
The manager interrupted the conversation, introduced the mandarin to the veterinary officer and totally ignored the clerk.
On a more serious level I saw my wife, a clerical officer at Glenree House, reduced to months upon months of depressive illness, regular prolonged periods of sick leave, and driven to early retirement by a disgraceful management regime of bullying and humiliation.
Unions do not seem to matter. Unions appear powerless in the path of the juggernaut of trundling bad management practices which consistently fail to regard the people-factor as being important.
Were it possible for humanoid automatons to be manufactured and plugged into power points at Glenree, such an innovation would fit well with current management policies.
Automatons do not cry when bullied, do not go sick and will never cause the embarrassment of leaving the building in tears, exposing management to public opprobrium.
Last year a Newry manager parked his new four-wheel drive jeep in the car park.
Later in the morning he publicly accused a staff member of having scratched his vehicle while she was parking. The woman collapsed in a flood of tears.
There was, of course, no truth whatsoever in the manager’s allegation but the woman was off work, close to a nervous breakdown, for all of six months.
The manager refused to apologise and the woman endured an emotional hell.
The loser was the woman, the manager survived.
It is my observation that management practices at the Department of Agriculture in Newry equate to Stasi principles, a kind of secret police approach.
Staff are called unexpectedly to disciplinary meetings, unions are sidelined and no-one in DARD leadership in Belfast seems to care. After all, the problem is only a people problem and people are there to be pushed and bullied.
Well they have bitten off more that they can chew. PJ Bradley is on the case and he will not let it rest.