Homicides committed against supervisors and coworkers by disgruntled employees have grown at a disturbing rate in the American workplace. Increasingly, embittered employees and ex-employees are seeking revenge through violence and murder for alleged mistreatment on the job. This article examines patterns and trends in available data and presents a theoretical profile of those who kill at the work site. It suggests that the typical homicide of employers and coworkers is committed by a disgruntled, white, middle-aged male who faces termination or who has recently been fired. Recommendations are advanced for how employers might better respond to problem employees and to homicidal threats at the workplace. These include prevention strategies, such as giving higher priority to the role of human resources, affording employees due process protection against unfair terminations, and changing the importance attached to the meaning of work in people's lives.
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References
1.
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health , NIOSH Facts: Homicide in the Workplace (Washington, DC: Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.).
2.
2. Northwestern National Life Insurance Company, Fear and Violence in the Workplace (Minneapolis: Northwestern National Life Insurance, 1993).
3.
3. Errors sometimes occur in recording the relationship between the victim and the offender. While the protocol instructs coding the relationship of the victim to the offender, at times this relationship is inadvertently reversed in the coding.
4.
4. Joseph A. Kinney and Dennis L. Johnson, Breaking Point: The Workplace Violence Epidemic and What to Do about It (Chicago: National Safe Workplace Institute, 1993), p. 42.
5.
5. For a discussion of the paranoid worker, see Peter A. Boxer, “Assessment of Potential Violence in the Paranoid Worker,”Journal of Occupational Medicine, 35(2):127 (Feb. 1993).
6.
6. Shervert H. Frazier, “Violence and Social Impact,” in Research and the Psychiatric Patient, ed. Joseph C. Schoolar and Charles M. Gaitz (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1975).
7.
7. Kinney and Johnson noted that in 23.8 percent of the cases of workplace homicide that they analyzed, the perpetrator committed suicide. Kinney and Johnson, Breaking Point, p. 21.
8.
8. Anne Campbell, Men, Women, and Aggression (New York: Basic Books, 1993).
9.
9. See David Gates, “White Male Paranoia: New Victims or Just Bad Sports?”Newsweek, 29 Mar. 1993, pp. 48-52.
10.
Stuart Palmer , The Psychology of Murder (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1960).
11.
11. The question of whether or not the U.S. Postal Service has experienced an unusually high rate of employee homicide is apparently a matter of some debate. Appealing to an analysis conducted by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Postmaster General Marvin Runyon has argued that, despite the negative publicity surrounding highly publicized incidents at postal facilities, the Postal Service has less than its share of homicide. Specifically, for the years 1980-89, the annual rate of homicide against postal workers was 0.63 per 100,000 workers, while the comparable rate for all workers was 0.71 per 100,000. See Marvin Runyon, testimony before U.S., Congress, House, Subcommittee on Postal Operations and Services, Hearings on violence in the United States Postal Service, 103d Cong., 1st sess., 5 Aug. 1993. As noted earlier, however, the vast majority of these incidents involve intruders, such as in fatal robberies of convenience store clerks or taxi drivers, as opposed to the vengeful acts of angry, disgruntled employees. It is quite true that postal clerks are rarely murdered by customers or by strangers in the process of a robbery. Focusing just on disgruntled employees who attempt to get even with their supervisors or the company, however, the U.S. Postal Service has indeed had far more than its share of violent episodes.
12.
12. James Alan Fox and Jack Levin, “Postal Violence: Cycle of Despair Turns Tragic,”USA Today, 12 May 1993.
13.
13. Interview on Today Show, NBC-TV, 7 May 1993.
14.
14. Quoted in David Lawder, “Postal Service to Ease Harsh Job Conditions,”Boston Globe, 8 May 1993.
15.
15. James Alan Fox and Jack Levin, “Fixing the Postal Service,”Detroit Free Press, 12 May 1993.
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16. In addition to their desire to protect the workplace from volatile job recruits, employers are also becoming increasingly concerned over possible civil liability from claims of negligent hiring or retention.
17.
17. Martin B. Herman, “Planning for the Unpredictable,”Security Management, p. 34 (Nov. 1992).
18.
18. A typical set of warning signs is given in S. Anthony Baron, Violence in the Workplace (Ventura, CA: Pathfinder, 1993).
19.
19. National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Preventing Homicide in the Workplace (Washington, DC: Department of Health and Human Services, 1993), pp. 4-5.
20.
20. Kenneth C. Freimuth, “Recognizing the Risks of Employee Reductions,”Security Management, p. 78 (Oct. 1992).
21.
21. Herman, “Planning for the Unpredictable,” p. 37.
22.
22. Northwestern National Life Insurance Company, Fear and Violence in the Workplace, p. 3.
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23. A worker who externalizes blame will respond angrily to a suggestion or requirement that he or she get counseled. The response might be something like, “I don't need counseling. If anyone needs counseling around here, it's you. All you have to do is to start treating me with some respect, and everything will be just fine.”
24.
24. Quoted in Associated Press, “Reno Urges Time with Families,”Boston Globe, 7 Apr. 1993.
25.
25. Arnold Hiatt, Remarks made at the Awards Dinner of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, Boston, MA, 28 Apr. 1993.
