Today, Rep. Cindy Axne (IA-03) voted with a bipartisan majority to pass the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Services Workers Act, which would provide health and social services workers the on-the-job protection they deserve.
Health care and social service workers – including nurses, doctors, social workers, emergency responders, and other types of caregivers – experience disproportionately high rates of workplace violence.
In 2016, health care and social service workers suffered 69 percent of all workplace violence injuries, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These workers were nearly five times more likely to experience violence on the job as compared to the average US worker. Nurses in particular face some of the highest rates of workplace violence. Between 2005 and 2014, there was a 110 percent spike in reported violence against these health care workers.
“Our health care and social services workers should be able to go to work and focus on their jobs without fear of violence or attacks,” said Rep. Axne. “No one should have to go to work afraid for their personal safety, especially not those who are providing life-saving care to Iowans. We should be honoring the workers who’ve done so much to protect and care for all of us during the pandemic, and I’m proud to support this bill to better protect them in their workplace. I will continue to fight for protections for our nurses, doctors, social workers and anyone in the health field.”
The Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act would:
- Compel OSHA to issue an interim final standard in one year and a final standard within 42 months requiring employers within the health care and social service sectors to develop and implement a workplace violence prevention plan.
- Identify risks, specify solutions, and require training, reporting, and incident investigations. It would also provide protections from retaliation for reporting violent incidents.
- Protect health care and social service workers in the public sector in the 24 states not covered by OSHA protections.
Supporting organizations include: American Nurses Association, Emergency Nurses Association, National Nurses United, National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians, National Association of Social Workers, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL-CIO, and more.
Original source can be found here.
