Workplace Violence

Although workplace violence is not a new phenomenon, most people felt safe in their workplace, at least in relation to the rest of their environment, until the 1980s. Beginning with Patrick Sherill, a postal worker who killed fourteen people and wounded six more, a wave of postal employee shootings and other attacks resulted in forty-eight deaths and approximately 2,000 cases of postal employee assaults. These injuries were publicized in an article titled “Fatal Occupational Injuries” that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Baker et al. 1982). The authors identified these incidents as a public health concern and challenged the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to develop standards that would protect workers from assaults in the workplace. By the late 1980s, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health began to systematically collect data about violence related occupational fatalities. Although OSHA still does not have specific regulations on workplace violence, its General Duty Requirement Section 5(a)(1) requires an employer to keep the workplace free from hazards that may cause death or serious physical harm. Business managers are beginning to realize that they must develop proactive measures to deal with potential workplace violence, or that they will be held accountable when an incident occurs. There have been a number of legal cases in which victims or families of victims of workplace [Page 1739]violence sought compensation from employers who they believe did not adequately protect the employee.

Workplace violence has distinct consequences for business leaders and governmental officials. It has been found to affect worker morale and corporate productivity. Although rare overall, workplace homicide was the second leading cause of fatal occupational injuries in 1994. The approximately one million incidents per year produce a dimension of workplace insecurity that adds to other business worries.

At the same time, the public needs to realize that the media has sensationalized workplace violence. of all homicides that occur in any given year, workplace homicide occurs the least. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey only 1 in 650 workplace incidents involve death.