badworkplace

Posts Tagged ‘Violence’

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Health and Work Safety: Food Safety and the Food Supply

In 1, disgruntled worker, food safety, terrorism, WORK - Bad Workplaces, WORK - Harassment, WORK - Safety, WORK - Workplace Violence on 12/28/2009 at 11:35 pm

So we forgot that terrorists were still looming large until the little Nigerian hopped aboard the big jet plane to Detroit just a half hour before it lifted off. Let us use this Christmas Day event as a reminder that we are vulnerable in other venues as well. The food industry, for example. Whether it involves international political extremists or just your everyday disgruntled worker who “has had it” with his boss, a coworker, or the company.

If you work in the food industry – or if you buy food at someone’s workplace – workplace violence could suddenly and unexpectedly take on a whole new meaning for you.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 76 million food-borne illness cases occur “naturally” or “non-intentionally” in the United States every year.

This amounts to one in four Americans becoming ill after eating foods contaminated with pathogens such as E. Coli O157: H7, Salmonella, Hepatitis A, Campylobacter, Shigella, Norovirus and Listeria.

Every year about 325,000 people are hospitalized with a diagnosis of food poisoning, and 5,000 die.

How easy would it be, then, for a disgruntled worker or customer to intentionally contaminate our food supply?

Is it any wonder that our Government and the food industry are concerned that terrorists might also target our food supply?

Are you concerned? Should you be?

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Violence and Political Correctness

In 1 on 11/19/2009 at 1:34 am

In view of the recent shootings at Fort Hood, we are reminded of a relevant case used in our “Bad Bosses, Bad Workers” book. Does the following story sound familiar? Why does management place “Political Correctness” above the safety of our citizens?

CASE:  “In a highly secure government installation, there was an employee who was a recent immigrant from _____. He took a loyalty oath to get security clearance to work in our company. Yet he held a deep commitment to helping that country, even to the point that he seemed willing to talk about our work with his friends ‘back home.’ This posed a high security risk for the U.S. He had been told to hold his tongue, but when he was with those he regarded as his countrymen (as opposed to regarding U.S. citizens as his countrymen), he still just talked and talked.

“Soon he reached the point where he would also talk about our country. He criticized the President on down to the Governor. Sometimes he would be so critical that we would feel like shooting him. He seemed so angry that he was not in his country, yet he wanted to stay here. His loyalties most surely lay outside the U.S. The fact that he could not be trusted had an immeasurable effect on the work that could be done at this installation.

“As you can imagine, all his coworkers hated him. No one wanted to be assigned to a project with him. No matter if you were just starting a project or deep into working on it, you could count on him going on a tirade about the terrible United States and how they had mistreated his country. Not only that, we were afraid this guy would someday reach his boiling point and do major damage to the installation where we worked, or worse. As workers, we don’t know the story behind why he was hired or why he was not let go.”

Which comes first: loyalty or political correctness? Protect yourself by letting your views be known to your company and your legislators.

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Workplace Violence Not New But Growing

In 1 on 11/04/2009 at 5:57 pm

Why are we shocked that people are murdered at Yale, Virginia Tech, Columbine, or other institutions? Or federal buildings, USPS facilities, and Planned Parenthood offices?

Violence in society at large is not new, but it is growing.  Incidents of violence are mentioned in The Bible and in ancient hieroglyphics and literature. For centuries sailors who traveled far from their employers on the high seas faced piracy by groups of bandits. Various religious and political groups have frequently resorted to violence—and still do.

A larger and more organized group, the Mafia, has been around since its origination in Sicily during the 9th century.  Street gangs have been fighting for at least 400 years, and in the last century there were numerous instances of violence committed by “The Mob” or other criminal elements in places where people work.  We also saw American businessmen in other countries kidnapped and held for ransom from their employers or for political purposes.

However, virtually all of these violent attacks were tabulated as criminal acts, not workplace violence; and they had little direct impact on most citizens in the USA.  Public and managerial indifference began to change when violence struck closer home in the 1980s and 1990s, with repeated homicides at U.S. Postal facilities and the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

During the last 3 decades workplace violence also spread to a totally different group of workers in a worksite that had always been considered safe:  the nation’s schools–elementary, secondary, and more recently, higher education. From 1997 to 2007, for example, the most recent year for which data are readily available, more than 7,000 occupational homicides occurred nationwide (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) by individuals inside or outside the organization.

How safe is YOUR workplace?

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Annie Le’s Workplace Murder – Why?

In WORK - Bad Workplaces, WORK - Workplace Violence on 09/21/2009 at 12:12 am

Annie Le’s murder is an act of workplace violence because it happened in the workplace; it may also have resulted from a workplace disagreement.  But why did Clark allegedly commit this hideous crime?

Often it’s difficult to differentiate between causes that stem from work factors and those that come from personal and environmental factors. Personal life and work life are symbiotically related. So operating in an environment characterized by change, innovation, uncertainty, and stress, a worker’s behavior may stem from that general environment as well as the company’s internal environment.

To a large extent, we have been transformed into a violent society by shortcomings in our general environment. Consider some of the sociocultural environment influences that make violence more acceptable and workers more vulnerable.

Violence is “forgiven” or left unchecked by an inefficient judicial system supported by large legal fees, rationalized, glamorized in our entertainment industry, practiced through computer and video games, provoked by the failure of the world’s greatest economic system to provide enough good jobs, and worsened by stresses brought on by our economy. We all become desensitized to some degree, but emotionally fragile persons can become totally desensitized, legitimizing their actions on the basis of others’ violent acts.

Other sociological reasons include the detachment from family, church, and community so that those institutions are no longer there to pull them through in times of trouble.  And, of course, we can’t overlook the increased presence of, and access to, both alcohol and legal and illegal drugs.

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