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An active shooter can show up at any workplace, but some industries and workplaces like healt care and social assistance have higher risks for violence. A former employee shows up at the workplace and shoots five workers, killing four, before driving to another former employer’s place of business to kill three others. A patient in […]
On June 26, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) announced citations for two Half Moon Bay farms where seven workers were shot and killed January 23. Cal/OSHA cited California Terra Garden, Inc., for 22 violations, including 5 serious and 1 serious, accident-related for failing to have a plan or procedures to immediately […]
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced “shocking” findings of a workplace safety investigation into a behavioral health and substance disorder facility in Jacksonville, Fla. According to the federal probe, workers at the UHS of Delaware Inc.-Wekiva Springs Center LLC (operating as Wekiva Springs Hospital) were assaulted, confined by patients, and suffered broken bones, concussions, and […]
The Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion at Nationwide Children’s Hospital of Columbus, Ohio, faces $18,080 in Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fines for workplace violence hazards, the agency announced May 25. The hospital failed to protect employees, including nurses and mental health professionals, from patients whose bites, kicks, punches, and other assaults caused serious […]
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited the Texas Children’s Hospital of Houston, Texas, with a serious workplace violence violation after an aggressive patient pulled a security officer to the ground by the hair and kicked them repeatedly in the chest and abdomen, the agency announced May 10. The officer lost consciousness, was taken […]
An administrative law judge (ALJ) with the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission upheld the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) citation of UHS of Delaware Inc. (UHS-DE) and UHS of Fuller Inc. for exposing their employees to workplace violence without adequate protections at the Fuller Hospital in Attleboro, Massachusetts, OSHA announced April 25. Review […]
Have you followed the details of this year’s workplace shootings? A supervisor buys a handgun before his shift, shoots and kills a handful of coworkers, and then shoots himself. A gunman armed with a semiautomatic rifle enters a Buffalo, New York, grocery store, killing 10 patrons. Another enters a Colorado Springs, Colorado, LGBTQ nightclub and […]
On July 21, the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced the release of a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the BJS, and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) titled “Indicators of Workplace Violence, 2019” (NCJ 250748; NIOSH 2022-124). According to the report, workplace homicides peaked […]
The issues surrounding workplace violence have posed major challenges for safety leaders for decades, but adding COVID-19 into the mix has made navigating these issues even more complicated. At the EHS Daily Advisor Exchange in Arizona earlier this month, Hector Alvarez, president of Alvarez Associates, held a workshop that explained how to better understand workplace […]
Back to Basics is a weekly feature that highlights important but possibly overlooked information that any EHS professional should know. This week, we examine workplace violence and OSHA’s recommendations for prevention. As COVID-19 regulations shift and employees start to reenter the workplace again in-person, EHS leaders need to be prepared to deal with the challenges […]