Harassment - advice (employee, job, company, office)

[Vivian C.]

Lets say somebody is working in a small office ( 6 employees, 1 manager).
The current manager poisons the working atmosphere and puts a lot of pressure on the people. He is yelling and screaming at everyone, is dissecting and evaluating everything in an aggressive and hostile way. The employee can't sleep anymore. He is totally worn out, physically and emotionally. He carried over vacationtime from the last year because he worked hard and persistantly.
When he asked the manager for a vacation or sick leave his response was: “Do you like your job? I have two people looking for work.”
There are many other incidents.
It was a nice office before with good working conditions, and the people liked working there. Now the morale is at the lowest.
My question: What possible steps can the employees do without getting ostracized from the company? Btw, this company doesn't treat their employee very well, but thats on a different page.
The office was still a nice working place and everyone felt a great loyalty towards the work targets.
My advice would be to arrange a meeting with the District Manager (WITHOUT the manager) to report the problems. It cannot be that one person controls 6 others and gets away with it.
Is that a good advice?
Can they ask the District Manager for confidentiality about who was joining the meeting?
Another question is, of course, if all the coworkers will stand to each other. What if not?
Thank you

[omigawd]

I will guarantee you, the employees WON'T stick together on this. Everyone will grumble and complain, but no one will stick together as a group and go the the District Manager.

Your best bet is to document everything that's happening in a journal. If possible, tape record this buffoon while he's on one of his rampages and send the tape to the District Manager anonymously. Put in writing that you need to take vacation time instead of asking. If he threatens your job because you need to take earned vacation time, then you should take it to the next level.

[malamute]

Transfer out or find another job that is more positive for you. What can you gain by working for a crappy boss?

[Vivian C.]

But its a good job. Good coworkers, good team.
Its just this one manager.
Is there not a way to get rid of him?

[omigawd]

Originally Posted by Vivian C.

Is there not a way to get rid of him?

The only way you're going to do that is if ALL the team members stick together and go to upper management or the District Manager. Unfortunately, that's NOT going to happen and this manager knows it. As I said in my previous post, people will complain and grumble to one another but will NOT take real action.

The best you can do is to continue documenting things and request a transfer. If the District Manager asks why, you can tell him (with your backup --- a journal, tape recordings, etc) about all the issues with the manager, including him threatening your job if you took earned vacation time.