"In order to understand the present, one must understand the past."
A brief history of Ontario Bill 168
This simple truism is the justification for the existence of the entire discipline that we know as history. June 2010 will see the introduction of Bill 168 in Ontario which amends the Occupational Health and Safety Act to include the requirement that employers address the issue of workplace violence and harassment. Many groups have complained that such a law is unnecessary and it is only required for certain high risk occupations, such as social workers, healthcare providers or correctional workers, where violence is a fact of daily life. I believe that this view is mistaken. I believe it exists because of a lack of understanding about the history of workplace violence that precipitated the current legislative initiative.
It is well established that harassing behaviour in the workplace will often escalate into outright violent aggression. The new law defines harassment as engaging in vexatious (troubling, disturbing, uncomfortable) comment and demands that employers not permit such behaviour in the workplace. The case of Theresa Vince of Chatham in 1996 is an example of how what started out as a series of unwelcome comments ended up escalating, into a case of unwarranted increases in work demands and ultimately ended with Mrs. Vince being fatally shot before her tormentor turned the gun on himself. In this case a lack of formal policy, a lack of procedure and even a lack of understanding by the victim herself, resulted in a tragedy that might possibly have ended differently if appropriate policies were in place. Policies that would have required an investigation and possibly identified and addressed the root cause of the harassing behaviour long before things escalated out of control.
The corrosive effects of workplace harassment were evident in the shooting at OC Transpo in 1999. A veteran bus driver, of 25 years, who had endured years of taunting because of a stutter finally snapped and ended up bringing a weapon into the Ottawa bus garage where he killed four workers before killing himself. The need for the new law to try to control violence in the workplace should be evident and most people would agree with its intent. However the law also includes the issue of harassment because of cases such as Vince and OC Transpo.
The law also requires employers to recognize and, within reason, protect workers against domestic violence. This requirement is largely as a result of the murder of Lori Dupont, in Windsor in 2005, by her estranged lover. In this case the hospital, where nurse Dupont worked, had scheduled her, on the day of her murder, to work along side the doctor that she had ceased having a relationship with because of his increasingly disturbing behaviour. The hospital did this, even though hospital administrators were fully aware of the doctor's erratic behaviour. Thus the amended legislation now requires employers to take reasonable steps to protect workers if the employer becomes aware, or ought reasonably to be aware, that the worker is endangered because of a domestic situation.
Workplace violence can be an issue in any workplace!
The laws we have today are often a response to what happened yesterday and Bill 168 is no exception. The law does apply to all employers because workplace violence can be an issue in any workplace; be it a hospital, a public transit facility, a jail or a retail store. If we as a society ignore what has occurred in the past, we will be condemned to see more of the same in the future and the lessons of history will have been wasted.
