PRESIDENT-NATIONAL
WORKRIGHTS INSTITUTE
BEFORE THE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE RELATIONS
Workplace
violence is an important but misunderstood problem. The primary problem is not violence by workers, but violence
against workers. The most common form
of workplace violence consists of attacks by outsiders against workers. In light of this, the most important step in
reducing workplace violence is to increase workplace security.
Another
constructive step would be to make the workplace less stressful by increasing
workers’ rights and reducing abusive behavior by supervisors.
It
would also be helpful for the government to help employers acquire the skills
needed to respond effectively to potentially violent situations.
Increasing
electronic surveillance of workers would not reduce violence, but increase
violence by elevating the already high level of workplace stress.
My name is Lewis Maltby. I am president of the National Workrights Institute. The Institute is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to expanding human rights in the workplace. Thank you for inviting me to testify today.
I.
NATURE
OF THE PROBLEM
The
issue of workplace violence is important, but widely misunderstood. Many people believe that workplace violence
primarily consists of workers assaulting other workers, or attacking managers. This is not the case. The majority of workplace violence consists
of outsiders attacking workers. Common
forms of this include police officers being shot, and taxi drivers and
convenience store clerks being robbed.
Another common form of violence is medical workers being attacked by
patients, especially those who have been institutionalized for mental
problems. Attacks by workers on
co-workers and managers are far less frequent.
In
order to solve any problem, the first rule is to focus our efforts on the
largest part of the problem. In the
case of workplace violence, this means protecting workers from assaults by
outsiders, clients, and customers.
There
is much that can be done in this area.
Physical barriers, more secure workplaces, and better alarm systems have
already helped, and more extensive use of these tools will yield additional
benefits. OSHA’s voluntary standards
for reducing workplace violence are steps in the right direction.
II.
REDUCE
WORKPLACE STRESS
In
the less common case where violence comes from workers themselves, there are
also constructive steps to be taken.
The first is to reduce the level of stress in the workplace. Work is inherently stressful. There are deadlines to meet, abrasive
supervisors and co-workers to deal with, and the constant knowledge that if we
don’t perform well enough, or the company falters, we may be fired. Termination of employment is second only to
the death of a loved one in producing human stress.
The
level of stress in the American workplace has increased sharply in recent years
due to greater levels of competition.
American employers must now compete with foreign firms, many of whom
have lower wages and benefits. This
leads to higher production quotas and shorter deadlines, while reductions in
force leave fewer people to do the work.
There
are many steps employers could take to reduce the level of stress. For example, employers could specify the
circumstances under which employees will be terminated and provide progressive
discipline culminating with review by an arbitrator or other neutral. Many employers have taken this step with no
loss of productivity or profit.
Employers
could also adopt and enforce rules against supervisory harassment. Many corporations today have strict policies
against sexual harassment. A supervisor
who belittles female workers for their gender or makes sexually inappropriate
remarks will often be subject to discipline.
But a supervisor who is generally hostile or abusive to men and women
alike is all too often ignored, even when the problem is brought to
management’s attention. For example,
there is a well-known incident at the Anderson Water Valley District in which
management became aware that workers reporting to a particular foreman were
having nightmares about him, often of a violent nature. The response was treat the nightmares as
threats and fire the workers.
Management made no attempt to look into the behavior of the supervisor
whose behavior caused the nightmares.
Employers
could establish Employee Assistance Plans.
Trouble often occurs when workplace stress is added to the stress of
personal problems, such as substance abuse or financial difficulties. While some employers have EAPs, many do
not. And many employers with EAPs
provide little or no financial support for employees who need counseling. Employers who want to invest in reducing
working violence should seriously consider better funding for the EAP.
III.
RESPONDING
TO POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS SITUATIONS
Even
the most successful stress reduction program will not completely eliminate
workplace violence. Workplace stress
can not be completely eliminated. Nor
is it possible to avoid the existence of troubled individuals, many of whom
will inevitably have jobs.
Therefore,
it is necessary for employers to be prepared to deal with potentially violent
situations. Contrary to popular belief,
people rarely become violent without giving warning. The problem is that others, including employers, fail to heed the
signals, or do the wrong thing.
One
key to responding to potential violence is advance preparation. When potential violence arises, fast
reaction is essential. But careful
thought is also required. This can only
occur when the employer has determined in advance who is responsible for dealing
with such situations, the rules and principles to be used, and provided proper
training.
A
critical step in advance preparation is forming a working relationship with a
violence prevention expert. Consultants
are available with deep expertise in the psychology of human violence and
extensive industrial experience. Trying
to handle a potentially violent situation without access to this expertise is
like representing oneself in court or trying to remove one’s own appendix. For example, the threshold question is
whether an individual is actually dangerous.
Managers are not trained to make this decision, and the consequences of
a wrong answer can be severe. Violence
prevention specialists are capable of providing much better answers.
IV.
GOVERNMENT
ACTION
The
government’s ability to reduce workplace violence is limited, but important. Government can not eliminate stress from the
workplace. Many of the steps needed to
reduce violence are the responsibility of management, and do not lend
themselves to legislative solutions.
But there are steps government can take that would make a positive
contribution. These include:
a.
Safety
Standards
There
are many steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of violence against workers
by outsiders. These include physical
modifications that make it harder for intruders to enter the workplace, better
alarm systems to detect intrusions, and physical barriers between workers and
others in high risk environments (such as taxis). Some employers have made steps in this direction voluntarily. But many employers have not been willing to
spend the money required to implement such steps.
The
government can help by developing and enforcing standards in this area. Current OSHA standards are helpful, but need
more complete development. The current
standards are also voluntary. They
would be far more useful if they were mandatory.
OSHA
could also help through better development and enforcement of safety and health
standards. Lawmakers generally think
about workplace violence and workplace accidents as distinct issues. But from the standpoint of the worker, they
are very much the same. In each case, a
person dies violently in the workplace.
Moreover,
fatal workplace accidents are more common than fatal workplace assaults. Following the principle of directing the
greatest effort toward the most damaging aspect of a problem, government’s
first priority in making the workplace safer should be to make OSHA more
effective.
b.
Whistleblower
Protection
Even
where we have legally required safety standards, they are often of little help
because our law makes them extremely difficult to enforce. Workers are generally the first to know when
an illegal unsafe condition exists. But
workers who report such situations are generally punished by the managers they
embarrass. Neither federal nor state
law provides meaningful protection for whistleblowers. The result is that many, perhaps most,
illegal dangerous situations go unreported.
c.
Training
As
discussed above, even the strongest management team needs training on how to
respond to situations of potential violence.
While large employers can afford to pay for this training, many smaller
employers find the cost to be a serious obstacle.
The
federal government has often helped small employers acquire knowledge of
important workplace subjects. It might
constructively play a similar role here.
d.
Right
to Organize
It
is well known that incidents of violence by ordinary people (including workers)
are deeply rooted in feelings of desperation.
Violence occurs when someone feels that he or she cannot live in their
current situation and feel powerless to change it.
This
suggests that changes which give workers a voice with which they can influence
their working lives reduce workplace violence.
Unions provide workers with the ability to affect workplace conditions
through collective bargaining and the grievance/arbitration process.
Federal
law, however, does not effectively protect the right to organize. While this right is protected in theory by
the National Labor Relations Act, the penalties for firing employees who try to
organize are so trivial that they have little or no impact in practice. Reforming the NLRA to make the right to
organize meaningful could be a helpful step in reducing workplace violence.
V.
COUNTERPRODUCTIVE
ACTIONS
The
bedrock principle of medicine is “first, do no harm”. This principle applies with equal force to lawmaking. The least those who are concerned about
workplace violence can do is to avoid making the situation worse.
One
response which will do nothing to reduce workplace violence, and may even
increase it, is to expand electronic surveillance of workers. Electronic surveillance has already stripped
Americans of their privacy on the job.
At least 80% of employers now conduct electronic surveillance of
workers.
Some
forms of surveillance are valuable. We
are all safer when employers place security cameras in parking garages and
parking lots. There are also
circumstances where employers legitimately use electronic technology to examine
employees’ work.
But
much electronic surveillance serves no legitimate purpose, and intrudes deeply
upon the privacy of workers. For
example, employers may often need to read the contents of work related e-mail
messages. But when a worker sends his
or her spouse an e-mail about an intimate family matter, the employer has no
legitimate right to read it.
Federal
law recognizes the principle that personal communication is ordinarily
off-limits to the employer. The
Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) generally prohibits
employers from listening to the contents of personal telephone calls to or from
the workplace. This requirement has not
been a problem for employers.
It
is time to update ECPA to cover other forms of communication which were not
commonly used in 1986.
There
are many other steps employers can take to meet their legitimate needs while
reducing intrusiveness. One such
technique involves the response to excessive personal web surfing. Traditionally, employers have monitored each
and every web site visit on an employee by employee basis. Detecting abuse after it has occurred is of
very limited use to employers, and is extremely intrusive for employees.
Advanced
web access software is now available that automatically enforces any employer’s
individual web access policy. This
allows employers to eliminate unauthorized web use without monitoring the web
sites each employee visits.
Many
employers are now engaged in the process of determining how to reduce the
intrusiveness of monitoring without sacrificing management goals. Leading employer organizations such as
Business for Social Responsibility and Privacy and American Business are
working with their members in this area.
Many leading corporations, such as the Cannon Corporation, have already
adopted these new techniques.
Proposals
for wall-to-wall monitoring undercut this important process.
Moreover,
excessive monitoring makes the workplace less safe. Research conducted by the University of Wisconsin establishes
that workers who are intensively monitored experience higher levels of stress
than other workers.
Increasing
workplace stress will only increase violence.
Another
approach that would be extremely counterproductive is to use the issue of
workplace violence as a vehicle to advance pre-existing political agendas. Many individuals and organizations,
including the Institute, have strong and conflicting opinions about unions, and
about workplace privacy. While the
strength of unions and employer surveillance practices have some impact on
workplace safety, they are not the critical factors. Workplace safety deserves to be debated in terms of the criteria
that truly affect it, not turned into a stalking horse to advance our views on
other issues.