Workplace bullying is focus of free program

Workplace bullying will be the focus of a presentation Friday at the Middle Country Public Library in Centereach.

Julie Simon, an executive of the employee-assistance company National EAP Inc. in Hauppauge, will discuss the psychological and organizational toll of bullying and provide strategies for dealing with it.

Earlier this year, a survey from the Bellingham, Washington-based Workplace Bullying Institute found that 27 percent of workers have "current or past direct experience" with abusive conduct at work and that 72 percent of employers "deny, discount, encourage, rationalize or defend" the behavior.

The program is free and open to the public. It begins at 8 a.m. in the Miller Business Resource Center in the library.