THE UMBRELLA

Know the Tactics

≈ 8 min read · or listen, or skim the bold lines

D · Draft — not verified Not line-checked against the Navajo Nation Code. How we verify →

Every dodge, stall, and squeeze has a name — and a named tactic loses half its power. “Tactics” alone is too soft a word: these are the four ways accountability gets beaten — deception, obstruction, coercion, and weaponization.

Deception — tactics of talk — evading the question, promising the sky, guilt by association: the distortions to catch in any answer.
Obstruction — tactics of process — the Runaround: bottlenecks, made-up rules, blatant disregard, jurisdiction tangles, process fog.
Coercion — tactics of the workplace — loyalty coercion, bullying from the top, displacement pressure, hiring NDAs that make the process unauditable.
Weaponization — turning the systems themselves into weapons — the bad-faith complaint: filings made not to fix a wrong but to harm — a license board sicced on a rival, an ethics complaint as revenge, reports timed as retaliation for speaking up. This is why real intake matters from both sides: a system with no teeth ignores true complaints, and a system with no filter becomes a weapon. The counters are the same as everywhere on this page: your contemporaneous records, everything in writing, and the pattern itself — who filed, when, right after what — is evidence. Knowingly false filings are themselves sanctionable in most systems.

Quick check — know the tactics

Check your understanding — private, no grades

Someone contesting a decision starts losing their footing — housing, income, standing — before any ruling. The tactic’s name?

Displacement pressure — the process punishes before any ruling. Fair systems freeze the harm until the answer is in.

“That policy changed yesterday” — a rule nobody can produce in writing. The counter-move?

Right. Invented rules evaporate when you ask where they’re written — and a rule enforced on you but waived for others is evidence it isn’t the real reason.

A hiring committee is asked to sign NDAs about who was interviewed. What does that do to auditing the hire?

An audit checks whether the process ran as written — it needs the paper and the people. Silence agreements on the committee remove both. Privacy for applicants, yes; secrecy about the process, no.

Bullying from leadership keeps working because…

The three fuels — and all three are election questions, because culture flows from the top and venues are built by structure.

Knowing the fuels is half of it; the other half is what you keep in your own hands:

Protect yourself

Write it down as it happens. Your contemporaneous, dated record is often the strongest thing you own.
Use the protected channels. Formal complaints filed through official doors (a grievance, an ONLR charge, an ethics filing) generally carry anti-retaliation protection that hallway complaints don’t — retaliation for a protected filing is itself a violation, and often a second, stronger claim. Ask in writing: which complaint routes here are protected from retaliation?
Know your deadline first. Every claim has a statute of limitations — and when the clock started (the event? when you found out?) is its own question. Ask it immediately, in writing, of any counsel or office: missing the deadline ends the claim no matter how strong it is. Defined in the glossary.
File before you move. Deadlines don’t pause for displacement; a filed case travels with you.
Ask every lawyer: who else do you represent? A lawyer who also represents the government or organization on the other side of your matter has a conflict of interest. You’re entitled to ask, entitled to the answer, and entitled to independent counsel — conflict rules exist exactly for this.
In court, expect delay as a tactic. Continuances, paper avalanches, outlasting the unrepresented. Deadlines cut both ways — your organized record and your own counsel are the counters.

Education, not legal advice — for your specific matter, DNA-People’s Legal Services and the resources page.

The tactic tally — has one been played on you? (tap to open)

Data we collect: tactic types · the kind of place · roughly when — never names of people, offices, or workplaces.

How to answer: tell it one experience at a time — check the tactics that were part of that one situation (they do gang up), pick the kind of place and when it happened. Lived more than one? Send another — each one counts. Treatment answers are your own account — counted as reported experience, published as exactly that.

How this works: nothing posts directly — volunteers review and de-identify everything, and only combined counts publish, dated, on Community Findings.

Tell us what you’ve seen →

Combined counts publish on Community Findings, dated. The story behind your checkmark belongs in Call out the tactics — de-identified.

If it’s happening to you right now — guardrails

Steadiness pointers for the person under hostility — practical, not legal or medical advice

Write as if a judge will read it — because one may. Every email, every reply: professional, factual, calm. Hostility wants you to match it; a tribunal later sees who stayed steady.
Keep doing the job well — and document that you are. They will be looking for cause. Your performance record is your shield; save your own reviews, your contract, the handbook — the documents that are yours to keep.
Journal daily, dated. What happened, who was present, exact words if you can. Five minutes a night builds the contemporaneous record that wins cases.
Don’t go through it alone. Witnesses matter and so do you — a trusted coworker, family, your chapter, a counselor. Hostility is designed to isolate; refusing isolation is a counter-move.
Don’t quit in the heat. Resigning can weaken or waive claims that firing would have preserved. If it’s becoming unbearable, get advice before you resign — there are ways to leave that protect you.
Sign nothing on the spot. Resignations, severance offers, NDAs — “I’ll review this and respond” is always a complete answer. Take it to counsel.
Document the toll, too — and see a doctor if you need one. Sustained hostility takes a real toll: sleep, appetite, concentration, and especially self-esteem — it is designed to make you doubt yourself, and that doubt is the tactic working, not the truth about you. Note the effects in the same dated journal (they are part of the harm, and part of any case), and don’t hesitate to see a doctor or counselor — that visit is care first, and its record is documentation second.
Mind the body carrying you through this. Sleep, eat, walk, and use the supports that exist; enduring well is part of winning.

Pairs with Protect yourself above and getting legal help. You are not the first — the tally shows it — and the named tactic is already half-beaten.

Call out the tactics

This list grows from the community. Seen one of these moves — or one we haven’t named yet? Describe the tactic, never the target: no names, no workplaces, no dates or details that could identify anyone — including you. Volunteers review every submission, strip anything identifying, and publish only the pattern, categorized below.

Report a tactic (tap to open)

Anonymous survey · published only as combined counts on Community Findings, dated

Anonymous · published only as de-identified patterns

How this works: we log types of issues and patterns — never names of people or offices. Nothing posts directly: volunteers review and de-identify everything, and only combined counts publish, dated.

Tell us what you’ve seen →

The community list

Nothing published yet — de-identified patterns will appear here, categorized and dated, as volunteers verify them. The seed list is the page above: every named tactic on this site started as something someone lived.

One habit beats them all: name the tactic, ask for it in writing, keep your own dated record. Goes with the five lenses and the Right Door guide.

Intention — the dividing line

An obstacle is harm without intent — the world built wrong. A tactic is INTENTIONAL harm — someone chose it. Weaponization means using a legitimate process with the intention to harm: the form is legal; the purpose is the weapon. Intention is what turns a broken system into an accountable act.

Retaliation — the tactic that follows speaking up

Retaliation is adverse action because you raised a concern, filed, reported, or testified — the NPEA and whistleblower rules treat it as its own violation, separate from whatever you reported. The tally above counts it; the doors below can act on it. Your best armor stays the same: the contemporaneous record — written the same day, timestamped by the system, kept off work systems.

Facing a hostile workplace — the doors

Official routes — verify current contacts on the Resources page

ONLR (Office of Navajo Labor Relations) — the front door for NPEA violations, including retaliation and wrongful discipline.
Navajo Nation Labor Commission — the tribunal that hears NPEA claims; it can order reinstatement and back pay. Mind the filing deadlines — deadlines are where good cases die.
DNA-People’s Legal Services — free representation for those who qualify (see Getting Legal Help).
EEOC — the honest jurisdiction note: tribal government itself is exempt as an employer, but border-town, contractor, and many non-tribal employers of Diné workers are covered.
Ethics & Rules — when the hostile actor is an elected official.
The Auditor / OIG routes — when the hostility is retaliation for reporting fraud (see Whistleblowing 101).

This grinds people down — IHS behavioral health and community supports exist, and using them is strength.

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This page shows what is. Here is what comes next. The fixes this record points to are written down, one by one: What Needs to Happen Now. The open items, each waiting for an owner: The Work. Observation is step one — these are steps two and three.