Fall 08
Vol. 13 No. 4

Story by Dave Schafer

An ex-employee toting a gun stalked onto a worksite hunting his former boss. It’s a familiar scene on the news, but this time, it was at a Public Works & Engineering site.

The ex-employee still had his city identification badge that allowed him to bypass security. Former co-workers heard the man’s threats, rushed the supervisor to safety, and called police before anyone was hurt.

Nor was anyone hurt in four other PWE workplace violence incidents during a three-month span or in other incidents in other departments. Tom Edwards, manager of building security for the 300-plus properties that Building Services manages, said his office deals with about one workplace violence incident per month.

Workplace violence is violence or the threat of violence against workers, according to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. The U.S. Labor Department says 551 workplace homicides occurred in the United States in 2004.

The April shooting at the Johnson Space Center made city employees more aware of workplace violence, said Rich Barrett, Employee Assistance Program manager.

Building for security
Edwards is vigilant. Many city buildings have a police officer on duty, and 190 cameras monitor City Hall, City Hall Annex, and 611 Walker alone. Edwards, who is always looking at ways to improve security, said Building Services will soon install turnstiles in 611 Walker’s lobby. Only people with approved access will reach the elevators without going through a metal detector. This will block a fired employee whose identification badge hasn’t been taken away.

“If you eliminate access and people wandering around, you eliminate the threat,” Edwards said.

Individual efforts
“The city might not have an overarching policy that’s captioned as workplace violence, but there are administrative directives talking about conduct and behavior,” said Lt. Gary Schiebe, Mayor’s Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security. And every department has rules and codes of conduct dealing with employee-on-employee violence.

Schiebe and Barrett said it would be difficult for the city to create one plan to cover all departments.

A 1983 city policy forbids employees from carrying weapons unless their job requires it, and some departments, including Aviation and PWE, have specific workplace violence policies.

“There are criminal statutes governing workplace violence,” Schiebe said.

Ultimately, planning for violence comes down to individual departments, divisions and floors of buildings, Barrett said.

Upon request, the E.B. Cape Center offers workplace violence seminars and EAP gives presentations. Aviation has a workplace violence awareness and prevention workshop.

Be watchful, but not nosy
Alert employees are the first line of defense, Barrett said.

When an employee thinks something’s not right, he should notify his supervisor or security if it’s an immediate concern. It’s better to be overly sensitive then to ignore a gut feeling, Barrett said.

“We pay attention to more things than we are aware of,” he said. “The problem is, we tend to deny our intuition.

“That’s when people can get hurt.”

Everyone agrees that supervisors must follow up on concerns. That encourages others to speak up.

Perhaps not every incident will be something. Nearly all won’t be anything big. But only by reporting the little ones, by keeping on constant vigilance, will we be ready to catch the big ones, Barrett said.

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