The Pros And Cons Of Workplace Violence

1890 Words4 Pages

Introduction
In 2012, 4,383 people were killed in work place accidents.463 people died from homicide or 11% of the total number (Bureau of Labor Statistices, 2013). The government has various agencies, such as Occupational safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), The U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration and the Department of Justice in place to protect worker, to ensure the workplace is safe, however for reasons often unknown, we see people resort to violence to solve their problems. In 2014 we have seen a shooting in Seattle, Santa Barbara and Fort Hood.
Ivan Lopez was responsible for the shooting at Fort Hood, which left three dead and sixteen wounded. Reports came out immediately after the shooting that stated that Army Specialist Lopez was unhappy with the human resources department at the base, and their handling of a leave request to attend a funeral. This apparently culminated into an argument that ended when the shooting began. Reports also claim that Lopez was also allegedly picked on by others soldiers in his unit some of them out ranking him.
While mental health is likely to play another huge factor in what lead to the shooting, this does beg many question to be answered in regards to violence in the workplace. Do leaders in organizations do enough to stop workplace violence? What can leadership do to ensure that their work space is violence free?
Hypothesis
Do authoritarian or bully leaders or managers impact violence in the workplace. While many factors play pivotal rolls into why a worker could potentially snap, this paper looks to explore if authoritative manager are helping to prevent this violence, or are one of the potentially ma...

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