Seeking solutions to violence on the job.

• Author: Braverman, Mark
• Position: The United States of Violence: A Special Section - Cover Story

Creating systems that defuse the time bombs of stress and violence is an investment in peace of mind for employers and workers alike.

The front page carries the story: A desperate, perhaps deranged employee, enraged and distraught at having been fired or passed over for a promotion, returns to the workplace to exact his revenge. He may head straight for the vice-president's office, to confront him with a revolver and a single, well-placed bullet. Or he may roam the halls with a deadly spray of automatic weapon fire, eliminating a number of individuals on his list of those who slighted him, interfered with his chances, or otherwise participated in his humiliation. He saves a bullet for himself, leaving behind grieving families and a workplace traumatized, terrified, and forever changed. Incidents such as the 1991 murders at the U.S. Postal Service in Royal Oak, Mich., and the 1993 shooting of eight people at the San Francisco law firm of Pettit and Martin are grim reminders that the workplace is not a safe haven from personal or societal tensions.

Crime, harassment, and internal violence have created a strikingly visible safety a health problem for the workplace. Recent figures from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that people at work increasingly are exposed to lethal violence. Homicide accounts for 17% of all deaths in the workplace. These same findings furnish the frightening picture of gas station attendants, store clerks, and taxi drivers who are dying on the job in unacceptably high numbers.

The scenarios of revenge and mass killings that grab national and local headline are only a small part of what NIOSH has called an "epidemic" affecting the American can workforce. The majority of incidents o workplace violence are not fatal assaults but everyday occurrences of physical violence, verbal threats, and harassment. In survey conducted by the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company, 25% of the respondents said that someone in their workplace had been assaulted, threatened with violence, or harassed during the past year. This amounts to an estimated 2,200,000 employees who have been directly affected by violence at work. Together with a mounting body of evidence, these figures require Americans, in the words of U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, to recognize violence as a primary public health issue.

These costs are borne disproportionately by vulnerable groups in the workplace. The Department of Labor's Workforce 2000 report states that two out of three new entrants into the labor force by the year 2000 will be females and/or minorities. For women, health and safety issues with regard to harassment are well-known. They continue to be victimized in high numbers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics points out that 40% of the women who died at work in the last decade were murdered. Despite increased awareness and training, harassment levels remain quite high - 19%, or 16,100,000 female workers, according to Northwestern National Life. The same study reports that less than half of employees who have been harassed report the incident.

Minorities continue to be embattled. Where a climate of worker insecurity prevails, diversity issues surface in the form of fear, conflict, and mistrust among ethnic groups. In our experience, levels of equal employment opportunity complaints are high where labor relations are poor, job security is in doubt, safety and worker security programs are neglected, and preventive health initiatives are absent. We have seen the racial climate in workplaces of all sorts and sizes set back 20 years in response to general anxiety about...