Public Employee Press

Clerical workers battle on-the-job violence

The longtime pattern of violence on the job at the Human Resources Administration continued in April when a Local 1549 member became the latest victim.

Finished with her last client, the worker left for her lunch break, when the client viciously attacked her with a hammer. Not until June 12 did she return to work at F-46, the food stamp program at the Crotona Job Center in the Bronx.

This incident underscored the urgent need to go back to the table with management to fully confront the problem. The Local 1549 Workplace Violence Committee scheduled a series of meetings with higher-ups to discuss solutions.

At the second meeting on June 12, they met with Inez Arias, director of the Crotona Center. The union’s goal “is to foster good working relationships that result in making each work site safer. To accomplish this, there must be a plan in place for every location,” said Council Rep Kenneth Mulligan, coordinator of the committee.

Mulligan pointed out that with summer vacations coming, staff will be reduced. “It will be getting hotter and clients will take out their frustrations on the staff,” he said. “There have been 150 violent ‘incidents’ since 1998,” said Mulligan.

“Our members are on the front lines facing the frustrated clients, not the commissioner. We don’t make the policies, but we have to deal with the fallout,” he said.

“Now is the time for action. Labor and management must get together and implement training, security measures and other necessary steps to address this problem.”