Rise in workplace violence alarming, says AUPE health and safety representative
EDMONTON – A growing number of Albertans face violence in the workplace, a trend that is leaving rising casualties in its wake, says AUPE’s Occupational Heath and Safety Representative.
“For every incident of violence that is reported, we estimate another 10 more workplace incidents go unreported,” said Dennis Malayko, one of the union’s OH&S specialists.
“Employers often dissuade employees from reporting incidents, which further victimizes the victim,” he said.
Recent statistics bear witness to Malayko’s claims. In 2004, the WCB confirmed 498 reported cases of workplace violence, a number that increased to 554 cases in 2005. “I’ve been in OH&S for 30 years now, and I’ve never seen such a high level of violence in our places of work,” Malayko said.
Alberta is far from an anomaly with respect to workplace violence. Nearly one-fifth of all incidents of violent victimization, including physical assault, sexual assault and robbery, occurred in victims’ workplaces in 2004, according to a recent Statistics Canada study that gauged criminal victimization on the job.
The study used self-reported data from the 2004 General Social Survey that questioned respondents in about 24,000 households about the prevalence of violence for three offenses (physical assault, sexual assault and robbery) during the 12 months prior to the survey.
The report found that there were more than 356,000 violent incidents in the workplace in the 10 provinces. The majority — 71 per cent — were classified as physical assaults.
For the purposes of this study, a “workplace” was a commercial or institutional establishment, such as a restaurant or bar, a school, a commercial or office building, a factory, a store, a hospital, a long-term care facility or a prison.
It was found that men and women were equally likely to have reported experiencing workplace violence, but men were more likely to be injured. Specifically, 27 per cent of incidents involving male employees resulted in injuries, compared with 17 per cent of those involving female employees.
One-third of all workplace violent incidents involved an employee who was working in social assistance or health care services such as hospitals, nursing or residential care facilities.
As Alberta’s largest union, representing more than 63,000 members, more than 31,000 of them health-care workers, AUPE has formally petitioned the provincial government to address the issue of violence in the workplace.
“We’ve formally requested the Alberta government send more OH&S inspectors into our hospitals, long-term care facilities and government offices to investigate incidents of violence,” Malayko said, pointing to recent serious incidents involving members employed in social assistance offices throughout the province, receiving death threats from clients.
“The province needs to step up and respond expeditiously to this growing epidemic of violence in the workplace,” he said. “No one should have to go to work and incur verbal and/or physical abuse – or have their life threatened.”