My husband works for a private company in VA. Unlike major corporations that have an HR dept seperate from the rest of the company, his company has a few staff members that are in the HR field. These employees are friendly with all the staff and in some cases good friends with bosses. Basically, they are HR related but when trouble arises the HR staff sides with boss rather than employee. My husband has been there for more than a year and a half. He has been called all sort of degrading names...not based on sex, color or race just in general. Examples would be ..Idiot, ******* , stupid, D***head etc .. In addition, he is treated very harshly ex. my husband asks for a day off for a funeral (this actually happened) he was told that the company is doing something this weekend and he will need to make other arrangements around this??!!. yet another employee got the week off??? Another example is he works with a co worker who is bipolar (this is a documented issue for that employee) this employee takes medicine but the medicine doesnt kick in and he rants and raves throughout the workplace. Yet if my husband and he (the bipolar employee) have a falling out my husband is the one who gets written up. Now its not my husbands fault this employee doesnt take his pills on time. However, he should not be the victim of this bipolar employee's verbal rath either. My husband has been verbally demeaned in front of peers and higher ups. He will not go to HR because at this point we cant afford for him to be "let go". Do we have any options?? Daily I have to hear about this and quite frankly am sick of it. I love my husband but at this point we cant afford for him to be unemployeed.

While the behavior described is appalling, it is not illegal and does not have legal recourse. If he will not go to HR, his option is to look for alternate employment and quit when he finds it.

so basically an employer can verbally abuse a member of staff and that employee has no rights??? because if that is the case he is going to have to find a new job that is for sure

Then he's going to have to find a new job because, as I said, there are currently no laws in this country making the kind of behavior you describe illegal. I think it's outrageous that the company has not done anything about it but because it is not illegal, they are not required to.

And, quite honestly, it's a pretty tricky road to go down when you start trying to make any form of speech illegal.