Dealing with Violence at Work



Dealing with Violence at Work

Should managers be held accountable and liable for workplace violence such as what occurred at Edgewater Technology? Why or why not?

Workplace violence has always existed in the United States—indeed, during some periods of our history, fear, intimidation, and physical violence were commonplace in work settings. Contemporary expectations in industrialized democracies, however, are that all workers are entitled to a workplace free from recognized hazards. Until approximately the last 15 years, however, those hazards were defined almost exclusively as developing from exposure to chemical, thermal, or mechanical energy. Although some occupational groups recognized the risk of violence during the course of doing their jobs (law enforcement, corrections, and to a limited extent, health care— particularly psychiatric care), it has only been in recent decades that violence directed toward persons while at work or on duty has been recognized as an important occupational safety and health issue across all industrial sectors. The growing field of workplace violence has focused on both understanding the risk factors for victims and developing recommendations to reduce the incidence and severity of events in the future.

The manager shall take the necessary measures to safeguard the health and safety of workers. This is an obligation of result. This means that once an employee is a victim of harassment or violence, the manager will be liable even if he has responded and taken action to stop the situation. Direct discrimination may relate to one employee, while indirect discrimination always refers to a group of people. Discrimination is also harassment and sexual harassment, or violating the dignity of the employee by the manager or another employee, for which the manager is liable for damages. The manger may also be responsible for encouraging or ordering of discrimination.

The crime of worker rights violations is one of the categories of offenses formal, which is already committed in violation of the rights of the employee, regardless of the consequences of this action. The subject of protection are primarily workers' rights relating to employment, as defined mainly in the LC, laws and regulations defining the rights and obligations of workers and employers, as well as the provisions of collective bargaining and the other based on the law on collective agreements, regulations and statutes define the rights and obligations of the parties of the employment relationship. It is therefore with all the rights of an employee under employment law, and not only those included in the basic labor rights.

Violence can be defined as a form of negative behavior or action, as between two or more people, characterized by aggression, whether settled, either instantly, that adversely affects the safety, health and welfare workers in the workplace.

The concept of violence must be broader than mere physical aggression (hitting, hitting, and pushing), and include other behaviors likely to intimidate violate and who suffers because violence often follows a gradual course: begins with situations in which you start talking and passing on to higher levels of intensity (escalation of ...