Media Contact: Patrick Wright -- Patrick.Wright@mail.house.gov
Washington, D.C. — Rep. Donald M. Payne, Jr. voted today for the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act. The bill (H.R. 1195) requires health care and social service providers to take stronger actions to protect all their workers from violence in the workplace, such as violence prevention programs and mandatory investigations of all violent incidents.
“Our health care professionals have worked tirelessly through this pandemic to keep us safe and we must do everything we can to keep them safe,” said Rep. Donald M. Payne, Jr. “They are making tremendous sacrifices to be on the front lines during our public health crisis. They should not have to worry about whether they will suffer a violent attack while they are saving lives. I am a strong supporter of actions that enhance worker safety and this is a much-needed bill for our health care and social service sector.”
Our nation’s caregivers, such as nurses and social workers, were nearly five times more likely to suffer a violent injury than workers in other sectors, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau stated that incidents of workplace violence in the health care and social service industries increased almost 70 percent during the last 10 years. Between 2007 and 2017, violent incidents against workers grew 123 percent in hospitals, 201 percent in psychiatric hospitals and substance abuse treatment facilities, and 28 percent in social service settings.
The bill directs the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to require employers within the health care and social service sectors to develop and implement comprehensive violence prevention programs to prevent or mitigate violent incidents in the workplace. The programs must identify risks, create solutions for those risks, and mandate training, reporting, and incident investigations. In addition, the programs must protect workers from retaliation for reporting violent incidents in the workplace.
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