Testimony delivered June 23, 2003, to the New York State Hazard Abatement Board byAssistant Director Susan O'Brien. Footnotes omitted.

TESTIMONY
HAZARD ABATEMENT BOARD
NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

CONSIDERATION OF PROPOSED WORKPLACE VIOLENCE STANDARD

PUBLIC HEARING - JUNE 23, 2003

My name is Susan O'Brien. I am the Assistant Director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH). NYCOSH is a non-profit, union-based health and safety organization providing training and technical assistance to a membership of over 400 individuals and 250 local unions, which represent thousands of workers in the New York City metropolitan area. NYCOSH also build coalitions of organizations concerned with safety and health in New York City. Our membership is comprised of workers and their unions, grassroots activists, public health professionals, scientists, occupational health physicians, immigrant advocates, injured workers and other concerned citizens.

NYCOSH trains more that 5,000 workers per year. It is through our extensive involvement with workers in the New York region (union and non-union) that we have been able to see first hand the extraordinary violence perpetrated on workers every day in this city, particularly public sector workers who struggle to meet the needs of all the people in the State of New York.

Nationally, workplace violence has reached epidemic proportions. Twenty workers are murdered on the job each week, while at least 2 million annually are victims of workplace assault. In the United States between 1996 and 2001 (excluding the events of September 11, 2001) assaults and violent acts were the second leading cause of workplace fatality after transportation incidents. Throughout the country, government workers generally have a higher victimization rate than private sector workers being assaulted at a rate of 28.6 per 1,000 workers as compared to private sector workers with an assault rate of 9.9 per 1,000 workers.

According to the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, of all workers in New York City public and private in the year 2001, excluding the events of September 11th, there were 100 fatal occupational injuries, 27 of which resulted from assaults or other violent acts. This 27% represented the second highest cause of workplace death during the year 2001 in New York City. In 43% of the cases, the worker was shot and 46% of those gunshots deaths occurred in public buildings.

Workplace violence is generally defined as any physical assault, threatening behavior, verbal abuse, harassment, or stalking that occurs in the work setting. After an extensive examination of violence in the workplace between 1980 and 1989, NIOSH concluded that there were identifiable risk factors that were shown to increase the likelihood of violence occurring in the workplace. The NIOSH list (which was eventually expanded by OSHA) includes the following:

• having contact with the public,
• exchanging money with the public,
• delivering goods, passengers, or services,
• having a mobile workplace such as a taxi or police cruiser,
• working with unstable or volatile persons,
• working alone or in small groups,
• working late at night or during early morning hours,
• working in high crime areas, and
• guarding valuable property or possessions.

To better understand its causes, researchers have divided workplace violence into four categories. The majority of workplace homicides (85%), fall into the first category, those perpetrated by criminals with no relationship to the business or the employees, usually with the intent to rob, shoplift, or trespass. For example, in buildings open to the public such as libraries, the workers must deal with any and all who enter the premises including the homeless or mentally ill who have no where else to go, and who are sometimes violent. Customers or clients who have a relationship with the business , including patients in nursing homes, public hospitals and psychiatric facilities, commit the second largest category of crime. The third category, worker-on-worker violence, accounts for 7% of all workplace homicides, a statistic that surprises many given the media attention that usually accompanies such acts. The fourth and last category is that of abusive personal relationships such as domestic violence incidents that spill over into the workplace.

Nationally, in 2001, homicide was the second leading cause of death for women on the job. Husbands, boyfriends and ex-partners commit 15% of workplace homicides against women. Domestic violence at work is estimated to cost millions of dollars a year in medical costs, much of which is footed by the employer. Moreover, lost work days, reduced productivity, and increased turnover as a result of domestic violence are estimated to cost employers between 3 and 5 billion dollars a year. In New York City alone, at least $500 million is spent on medical expenses, lost work time, foster home care, homelessness, and law enforcement due to domestic violence. Enactment of a workplace violence standard will reduce the danger that a woman may be assaulted or killed by an abusive partner while at work, and reduce the overall harmful effects of domestic violence in the workplace.

Violence is prevalent throughout New York State workplaces as well, and public sector workers bear the brunt of the abuse. From 1995 to 2000, New York State government workers reported a total of 10,173 assaults. In 2001, local government employees were assaulted on 5,778 occasions. In the same year, New York's private sector workers were assaulted 3,030 times. Although the private sector workforce is nearly 5 times greater than the public sector, public sector workers were assaulted nearly twice as often. The nearly 1.2 million government workers in New York State are at increased risk of violence according to a U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (a divisions of the US Department of Justice) study indicating that government employees have higher victimization rates than private sector workers and self-employed people combined.

New York State workers in service producing workplaces such as transportation and public utilities, wholesale and retail trade, finance and public administration are at even greater risk of violent assault. In 1999, 111.1 of every 10,000 service producing workers were assaulted. By 2001, 143.1 workers per 10,000 were assaulted on the job. Local government workers are assaulted at a rate of 132.9 for every 10,000 workers. The only occupations comparable in risk are law enforcement and corrections. Victims of workplace assault who worked for New York state government took a median of 8 days off in 1999, although nearly a quarter required more than a month to recuperate.

While these statistics might be alarming, they are probably much lower than the reality. The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that only 44.2% of violent victimizations sustained at work are ever reported. Most workplace incident reports only collect data on incidents resulting in physical injury or death. Threats, verbal assault, harassment and other non-physical assaults are not typically reported to employers or government agencies. In some jobs, assaults are so common as to be thought of as part of the job. And, in some workplaces, workers don't report incidents because they are fearful of retribution from the perpetrator or from the employer, particularly if they try to file for workers compensation.

The U. S. Department of Justice states that "the key to reduction of violence is to...have a [workplace] response plan in place. Policies and procedures are required to effectively handle the problem of workplace violence." The US Department of Labor has even begun to cite employers under the general duty clause for exposure "to the hazard of workplace violence." At this time, OSHA General Duty Clause citations for Workplace Violence are rare. And, it is likely that an OSHA Workplace Violence Standard is years away. It is time for the New York State Hazard Abatement Board to act to create this important program for public employees.

The development of a workplace violence standard in New York State would have a major impact on preventing needless deaths and injuries. An enforceable regulation should be developed that follows the OSHA Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Healthcare and Social Service Workers. Such a regulation should create a written program that requires employee involvement in all aspects of the program. It should start with conducting a risk assessment of the workplace to identify the factors involved in previous violent incidents such as when, where, under what conditions and how often these incidents occurred. This analysis could then be augmented with a workplace survey. Once that is completed, if a good program like the one OSHA recommends is in place, the next step should be an examination of the workplace and work tasks to determine what risk factors exist that increase the likelihood of violence. Finally, appropriate control measures to minimize the potential for violence in the work environment should be examined and ultimately implemented including changes to the physical environment, administrative changes and training. This is the type of regulation that could make a difference.

Regulations like those in the State of Washington have been successful in lessening incidents of violence in retail stores and in health care and social service agencies. A study conducted by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries found that businesses with regulatory enforcement activity experienced a decline in workers' compensation rates of 22.5%, while claims rates at workplaces without enforcement activity declined only 7%. One can only conclude from this that regulation paired with enforcement is essential to reducing workplace injury. In another case, the Canadian Provence of British Columbia has had a Workplace Violence regulation since 1993 requiring risk assessment, establishment of policies and procedures, training of workers and proper post-incident response. The reasoning that regulation paired with enforcement is essential to reducing workplace injury seems to be borne out by a comparison of the rates of fatalities resulting from workplace violence. In the Province of British Columbia in the year 2001, workplace violence was the 11th most common cause of workplace fatality as compared to the State of New York where violence was the 2nd leading cause of workplace fatality during the same year.

In our experience, most employers will not voluntarily develop or implement violence prevention programs without a federal or state standard requiring them to do so. This is why it is so important for New York State to take the first step and develop a regulation protecting public sector workers. A standard will require employers to consciously identify and evaluate hazards and act pro-actively to prevent violence.

Violence on the job, though often a criminal justice issue must be seen first, as a public health problem - a preventable public health problem. The Hazard Abatement Board of the State of New York has the opportunity to radically reduce the number of workers whose lives are destroyed by being hit, kicked abused, shot at and killed while simply trying to do their jobs. Speaking on behalf of all the members of NYCOSH, we urge you to take this opportunity to protect the lives of our public sector workers. We ask you to recommend that the New York State Department of Labor adopt a Workplace Violence standard as soon as possible.

Thank you.