Towards a National Prevention Strategy for Workplace Violence in Canada

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Towards a National Prevention Strategy for
Workplace Violence in Canada

• Union of Taxation Employees
• National Health and Safety Conference
• October 24, 2010
• Anthony Pizzino
• National Director
• Research, Job Evaluation, Health and Safety
• Canadian Union of Public Employees

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Introduction

• As an occupational health and safety hazard,
  violence in Canadian workplaces has been
  propelled from relative obscurity in the 1980s
  to one of todays leading health and safety
  problem.

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What is Workplace Violence?

• Workplace violence generally covers insults,
  threats or physical and psychological aggression
  exerted by people from outside the workplace
  (patients, customers, clients, students, etc.)
  against a worker.
• There may be racial or sexual dimensions to the
  violence.

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What about bullying and harassment?

• Different names similar problems
• Psychological Harassment (Quebec)
• Moral Harassment (France)
• Violence, Moral Harassment, Sexual Harassment
  (Belgium)
• Victimization at work (Sweden)
• Mobbing (Leymann)
• Bullying (Schmidl- Mohl, Needham)
• Intimidation (Paoli)
• Moral Harassment (Hirigoye)

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Bullying no internationally-accepted definition

• The International Labour Office (ILO)
• Workplace bullying constitutes offensive
  behaviour through vindictive, malicious or
  humiliating attempts to undermine an individual
  or groups of employees.
• The European Union and WorkSafe Victoria
  (Australia)
• Workplace bullying is repeated, unreasonable
  behaviour directed towards an employee, or groups
  of employees, that creates a risk to health and
  safety.

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Bullying

• Can include subtle acts like devaluation of an
  individuals work or social isolation.
• Bullying can encompasses both physical, verbal
  and psychological violence.

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Factors that increase the probability of violence

• An organizational culture that condones violent
  behaviour.
• An organization that fails to recognize violence
  as a problem.
• Working with the public.
• Handling cash.
• Working alone.
• Poor interpersonal relationships between
  management and workers.
• Organizational change.

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Factors that increase the probability of bullying

• An organizational culture that condones bullying
  behaviour.
• An organization that fails to recognize bullying
  as a problem.
• Working alone.
• Poor interpersonal relationships between
  management and workers.
• Poor relationship between co-workers.
• Organizational change.

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The link to violence

• Bullying can and does lead to violence.
• However, there is a tendency to mix or misuse the
  terms of workplace bullying and workplace
  violence.
• Workplace violence concentrates on behaviour that
  has criminal aspects (or would be considered
  criminal if it occurred outside the workplace).
• Behaviour that falls within the concept of
  bullying is less likely to have criminal aspects.

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(Psychological) Harassment is

• A global problem that is relatively unknown and
  underestimated.
• A form of worker abuse arising from unethical
  behavior that leads to victimization.
• A problem that affects work performance, health
  and quality of life.

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Internal Violence

• Contributors
• Overwork
• Workplace stress
• Workplace with a rigid management style
• Management style that is based on threats and
  intimidation rather than reward and recognition
• Management style that rewards only productivity
• Workplaces that lack conflict resolutions skills
• Downsizing and restructuring

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What is the extent of workplace violence?

• Occupational violence is a problem around the
  world
• Di Martino and Chappell, 2006
• Workplace violent crime
• In the U.S. in 2005 792 workplace deaths
  attributable to workplace violence
• Provincial Canadian statistics are difficult to
  gather, but

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What is the extent of the problem?

• In Canada in 2006
• 20 of violent victimization, including physical
  assault, sexual assault and robbery occurred at
  work.
• 71 of the incidents were classified as physical
  assaults.
• There was a high proportion of incidents against
  those working in accommodation or food services,
  retail or wholesale trade, and educational
  services sectors.
• Violent incidents that occurred in the workplace
  were twice as likely to be reported to the police
  than those occurring outside of the workplace
  (37 compared to 17).
• Criminal Victimization in the Workplace
• by Sylvain de Léséleuc
• Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
• (Available from the Statistics Canada website
  www.statcan.ca )

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What is the extent of the problem?

• Our findings are deeply troubling
• Out of Control Violence Against Personal
  Support Workers in Long-Term Care
• Banerjee and Armstrong, 2008
• Almost all (89.7) of personal support workers
  indicated that they had experienced some form of
  physical violence while at work.
• Nearly half (43.0) reported that physical
  violence occurred more or less every day.

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What is the extent of the problem?

• Most incidents of violence go unreported.
• Violence remains invisible and unaddressed.
• Workers dont report violence because they dont
  have the time to complete the paperwork.
• They dont believe anything will be done.
• They are afraid of being blamed.
• They are expected to tolerate this abuse as part
  of the job.
• Out of Control Violence Against Personal
  Support Workers in Long-Term Care
• Banerjee and Armstrong, 2008

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Solving problems

• The principles involved are basically the same
  ones used to deal with other occupational health
  and safety hazards
• identify the problem
• solve it using a preventive focus
• involve the workers affected, and then
• monitor the effectiveness of the preventive
  intervention.

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Bad ideas

• In the rush to solutions, training companies,
  law firms and some consultants are flooding the
  market with questionable products and services.
• Included are
• Seminars on how to be shielded from legal
  liability
• Guidelines on formulating zero-tolerance
  policies
• Pre-employment screening approaches
• Instruments to profile violence-prone employees

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Bad ideas

• Lead to overreactions.
• Most focus exclusively on violence perpetrated by
  workers.
• In reality
• The revenge killing or disgruntled worker
  scenario comprises a very small part of the full
  scope of workplace violence.
• Vastly more workers are threatened, beaten or
  harrassed.
• The disgruntled worker scenario is newsworthy,
  yet is a small part of the problem.

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Legislation for the prevention of workplace
violence

• All Canadian employers have a duty to protect
  workers from violence in the workplace.
• Some jurisdictions Federal, BC, AB, SK, MB, NS,
  PEI, ON have enacted specific OHS legislated
  provisions on violence in the workplace.
• QC has broader provisions in its Labour Standards
  Act, which includes preventing psychological
  harassment.
• Saskatchewan has expanded definition of
  harassment to include abuse of power and
  bullying.

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Prevention suggestions

• Establish and enforce OSH legislation for the
  prevention of violence in the workplace, bullying
  and harassment.
• Negotiate strong collective agreement language to
  address occupational health and safety, including
  violence, bullying and harassment.

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Prevention suggestions

• Involve the joint occupational health and safety
  committee and the union.
• Define and acknowledge violence as an
  occupational hazard.
• Develop a no violence/ no bullying/ no
  harassment policy which has senior management
  commitment.
• Provide information to workers about the
  potential for violence.

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Prevention suggestions

• Provide education and training on what is
  violence, and appropriate responses to violence.
• Recognise the importance of workplace design and
  work organisation.
• Improve the psycho-social work environment,
  including moving away from authoritarian
  management styles.
• Establish mandatory reporting of violent
  incidents.

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Prevention suggestions

• Develop a credible, prompt and objective
  investigation process.
• Provide support for affected workers.
• Consider prosecution of assailants.
• Monitor effectiveness.

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Resources

• The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and
  Safety
• www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/
• Quebec labour standards on psychological
  harassment can be found here
• www.cnt.gouv.qc.ca/en
• The European Union Agency for Safety and Health
  at Work has information on stress, bullying,
  violence and harassment
• http//osha.europa.eu/en

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Thank you!