NY Must Combat
Workplace Violence

Workplace violence is a chronic problem with a long history in our country, including here in New York State. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Annual Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, on-the-job injuries caused by assaults and violent acts increased by 26.7 percent between 2005 and 2008 for New York State government employees.
In fact, as chair the New York State Assembly Subcommittee on Workplace Safety, I am continually confronted with stories of workplace violence across a wide range of occupations, particularly against healthcare workers, mass transit workers (including taxi drivers), civil servants responsible for preserving our quality of life, and workers in the juvenile justice system.
This is why this past year we passed legislation increasing penalties for assaults against nurses, sanitation enforcement agents and taxi drivers (inexplicably, the governor vetoed the bill protecting taxi drivers).
A comprehensive effort to protect public employees from workplace violence was passed in 2006, the “Workplace Violence Protection Law.” The law is a national model, requiring public employers, including state agencies, public authorities and local governments, to work collaboratively with their workforce to establish workplace violence prevention programs – to identify and assess the potential for violence in their workplaces, develop and implement strategies for limiting the possibilities for workplace violence, and provide training to prevent workplace violence from occurring.
Unfortunately, an analysis conducted by my Subcommittee reveals that the Workplace Violence Prevention Law is not being followed. (The report is available on-line here:https://assembly.state.ny.us/comm/WorkPlaceSafe/20101105/index.pdf.)
We surveyed over one hundred state agencies and public authorities, and what we found is profoundly disturbing: 45 percent of state agencies surveyed, and 47 percent of state authorities surveyed, did not produce any evidence of having completed a workplace violence prevention program as required by law. For those entities that did complete the survey, 50 percent of state agencies, and 46 percent of public authorities, conceded that they had not provided the workplace violence prevention training required by law.
Other government agencies are starting to notice. The New York State Department of Labor, for example, has cited the State Office of Mental Health for failing to prepare a workplace violence prevention program at Bronx Psychiatric Hospital. One needn’t be a rocket scientist to figure out that a psychiatric hospital should be one of the first places to get a workplace violence prevention program, and indeed there are numerous examples of workplace violence at such facilities. At the unveiling of our report we were joined by employees at Bronx Psychiatric who were victims of workplace violence.
But workplace violence isn’t limited to psychiatric hospitals, of course. Earlier this month the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that workplace violence was prevalent at St. Barnabas Hospital, and recommended the adoption of a workplace violence prevention plan. The complaint against St. Barnabas was filed by doctors and residents at St. Barnabas who were fed up with the hospital’s refusal to take the issue seriously.
The Subcommittee’s report is just the beginning of our effort to protect New Yorkers from the scourge of workplace violence. We expect to hold hearings on the issue once the legislature reconvenes in January, and invite testimony from government agencies who aren’t living up to their responsibilities to protect their workers, and from workers representing a broad range of occupations where violence has become a regular feature of the workplace. If necessary, we will introduce legislation expanding the scope of the workplace violence law to cover a wider range of workers who need its protection.
Because every New Yorker is entitled to a safe workplace, and in particular a workplace that is free of violence.
Rory Lancman is a member of the New York State Assembly representing District 25 in Fresh Meadows.