Occupational Health Guide to Violence in the Workplace

Thomas D. Schneid

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351427241
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

20 murders every week. 18, 000 assaults in the same time. All on the job.
Sharp increases in workplace violence continue to take an unfortunate toll on American business-and its employees, families and communities. Preventative measures may be well-intentioned, but pose troubling conflicts in themselves, pitting each employee's privacy vs. overall worker protection.A full-self evaluation of your business and its personnel may be the key to safeguard against workplace violence. Thomas D. Schneid's Occupational Health Guide to Violence in the Workplace provides the important guidelines for that careful, all-encompassing examination.Most books on workplace violence focus on psychological profiles. In a change of pace, Schneid examines the issue from a safety/health professional's viewpoint, taking all angles, legal issues, and potential ramifications into account. Chapters focus on not only in-house efforts to prevent violent incidents, but also government and legal standards directly or indirectly related to worker's rights and corporate liability.Make every effort to prevent workplace violence from hitting home: start with advice from the Occupational Health Guide to Violence in the Workplace

chapter one

Overview and history

“The history of the past interests us only in so far as it illuminates the history of the present.”

Ernest Dimnet

“History is a race between education and catastrophe.”

H. G. Wells

Workplace violence has fast become the leading cause of work-related deaths in the United States and has opened an expanding area of potential liability against employers who failed to safeguard their workers. According to statistics from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), over 750 workplace killings a year have been reported in the 1980s.¹ Additionally, according to the National Safe Workplace Institute, there were approximately 110,000 incidents of workplace violence in the United States in 1992.² A common misconception is that violent incidents are a fairly new phenomenon, however, workplace violence has been happening for a substantial period of time. The primary reason for the emphasis in this area at this time is because of the increased frequency and severity of the incidents of workplace violence.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 1,063 homicides on the job in 1993 and of these deaths 59 were killed by co-workers or by disgruntled ex-employees.³ By 1996, 1, 144 of the 6,112 on-the-job fatalities were caused by workplace violence.⁴ The 1993 report also noted that there were 22,396 violent physical acts which occurred on the job in 1993, and approximately 6% of these incidents were committed by present or former co-workers. This percentage has steadily increased each year.

Table 1.1 Workplace Homicides in the United States, 1980–92^a

Year	Number	Rate
1980	929	.96
1981	944	.94
1982	859	.86
1983	721	.72
1984	660	.63
1985	751	.70
1986	672	.61
1987	649	.58
1988	699	.61
1989	696	.59
1990	725	.61
1991	875	.75
1992	757	.64
Total	9,937	.70

^a NIOSH (1995); Data not available for New York City and Connecticut; data calculated per 100,000 workers.

According to the data from the National Traumatic Occupational Fatalities (NTOF) Surveillance System during the 13-year period from 1980 through 1992, 9,937 workplace homicides occurred, with an average workplace homicide rate of 0.70/100,000 workers (see Table 1.1). Over the course of the 1980s, workplace homicides decreased; but in the 1990s, the numbers began to increase, surpassing machine-related deaths and approaching the number of workplace motor-vehicle-related deaths.⁵ NTOF is an ongoing, death-certificate-based census of traumatic occupational fatalities in the United States, with data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Table 1.2 Workplace Homicides by Industry and Sex — United States, 1980–1992^a

	Homicides (% of total)
Industry	Male workers	Female workers
Retail trade	36.1	45.5
Services	16.0	22.2
Public administration	10.5	2.9
Transportation/communication/public utilities	10.6	3.8
Manufacturing	7.0	4.9
Construction	4.1	.6
Agriculture/forestry/fishing	2.7	.6
Finance/insurance/real estate	2.4	6.8
Wholesale trade	1.7	1.1
Mining	.6	.1
Not classified	8.5	11.7

a NIOSH (1995); Data for New York City and Connecticut were not available for 1992; percentages add to more than 100% because of rounding.

In this study, the majority (80%) of workplace homicides during the study period of 1980 through 1992 occurred among male workers. The leading cause of occupational injury death varied by sex, with homicides accounting for 11% of all occupational injury deaths among male workers and 42% among female workers.⁶ The majority of female homicide victims were employed in retail trade (46%) and service (22%) industries. A large number of male homicide victims were employed not only in retail trade (36%) and service (16%) industries but in public administration (11%) and transportation/communication/public utilities (11%) (see Table 1.2). Although homicide is the leading cause of occupational injury death among female workers, male workers have more than three times the risk of work-related homicide (see Table 1.3).

The age of workplace homicide victims ranged from 16 to 93 during the study pe...