For Immediate Release
Thursday, March 14, 1996
AFSCME Welcomes OSHA Violence Guidelines
Washington, DC —The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) today at a news conference released Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Health Care and Social Service Workers, which call for increased measures in assessing the problem of workplace violence, and in implementing effective violence prevention programs. Speaking at the news conference were AFSCME Local 112 President Donna Edwards, a social service employee with the Baltimore City Department of Social Services in Baltimore, Maryland, and Merida Rodriguez, a hospital employee who is a member of AFSCME Local 420 of District Council 37 in New York.
According to OSHA, more assaults occur in the health care and social services industries than in any other industry. The guidelines urge management to affirm a policy that "places as much importance on employee safety and health as on serving the patient or client."
The OSHA guidelines also call on employers to:
- provide adequate staffing in areas where violence is more likely to occur;
- keep records of threatening or violent workplace incidents;
- conduct surveys to determine areas where employees feel threatened, and to solicit employee input into reducing the threat of violence;
- make structural and procedural changes that protect employees from enraged clients or customers;
- provide training and education in the early warnings and prevention of workplace violence;
- establish post-incident response procedures for victims and witnesses of violence.
Gerald W. McEntee, president of the 1.3 million member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), welcomed the new OSHA guidelines, saying, "For too long, workers in hospitals, mental health institutions and social services have suffered from violent assaults. For the first time, OSHA has acknowledged that violence is a recognized workplace hazard, and that employers have the ability -- and the duty -- to take action to prevent these assaults."
McEntee went on to say that "workplace violence can no longer be considered to be random and unpredictable or 'just part of the job.' These guidelines put those myths to bed once and for all."
Merida Rodriguez told of how she, as a mental health aide at the Bronx Municipal Hospital in New York, was hit in the stomach with a chair by a resident in 1994 and suffered a miscarriage as a result of the attack.
"What happened to me wouldn't have happened if many of the suggestions in these guidelines had been put into place." said Rodriguez. "Patients have a right to quality care, and workers have a right to a safe workplace. We can only provide that care if we feel safe. These guidelines should go a long way toward that."
AFSCME Local 112 President Donna Edwards recounted the story of Tanja Brown-O'Neil, a Local 112 member who was stabbed to death in 1992 by a disgruntled food stamp recipient. Edwards described the dangerous conditions in inner-city social service agencies and expressed concern that conditions in those agencies may get worse.
"With the real and threatened cutbacks in government services, we will see more people needing more help, while we have less services to provide," said Edwards. "We fear that some of these frustrated, and sometimes volatile individuals will take out their frustrations not on the politicians, but on the front-line workers -- us."
AFSCME has been a leader in the Labor Coalition Against Workplace Violence which has been lobbying OSHA for two years to issue these guidelines. The coalition is made up of more than 20 unions representing health care and social service workers who are especially vulnerable to violent assaults. In addition, AFSCME last year commissioned a report by the Center for Women in Government that outlined the risks faced by women in the workplace, particularly government employees.
AFSCME members have been killed in violence-related incidents in mental health institutions, food stamp offices, child welfare offices, correctional institutions, and schools.
While the guidelines are not an enforceable standard, OSHA does make clear that "appropriate enforcement" will be part of its program to prevent workplace violence. "Employers can be cited for violating the General Duty Clause if there is a recognized hazard of workplace violence in their establishments and they do nothing to prevent it." OSHA's General Duty Clause requires employers to provide their employees with a workplace free from recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm.
"All of the measures suggested in this document have been tried and proven effective in workplaces across the country," McEntee said. "Putting these measures into effect will not only benefit workers, but also make these institutions and other workplaces run better. We hope to work cooperatively with our employers to make our workplaces safer, but it is good to know that OSHA is ready and able to cite employers who are negligent in their duty to provide a safe workplace."
