“If I could, I would take this f*** ball and shove it down your f*** throat.”
- Tennis Star, Serena Williams

By now, even non-tennis fans know who Serena Williams is and what she did at the U.S. Open last Saturday night. Let’s forget all the sports and societal implications for a moment. I believe Ms. Williams’s conduct raises a fascinating issue of workplace violence. And so I pose a question to you as safety professionals:

What would you do if one of your workers uttered these words to a co-worker?

The Workplace Violence Dilemma

Recognition of workplace violence as a hazard is a good thing. The threat of violence is just as real as the threat of chemical or electrical injuries and it’s imperative for companies to address it in their health and safety programs.

But regulating workplace violence is a lot different from managing other hazards. Chemicals don’t protest when you stick a HazCom or WHMIS label on their containers; electricity doesn’t give you a hard time when you de-energize equipment and install circuit interrupters.

Workplace violence, by contrast, is a hazard generated by human beings. And human behavior is much less predictable than the operation of inanimate objects like machines and forces of nature like electricity. Human beings also possess something that no other workplace hazard can boast: legal rights.

So when you take actions against workers for engaging in workplace violence, you’re leaving the realm of engineering and physics and wading into the domain of psychology and law.

Are Threats of Violence Real?

The clearest manifestation of this challenge is when workers make verbal threats of violence. Conking a co-worker on the head with a wrench or shoving a tennis ball down his throat are clearly acts of violence meriting the most urgent of response and harshest of penalty.

But what if the worker merely threatens such an action? Serena Williams’s threat to the line judge the other night was hideous and outrageous. But what it was not was a literal threat of violence. Ms. Williams just lost her head and gave in to her emotions.

I’m guessing that at least some of your workers might do the same. Of course, there’s no excuse for threatening violence. But the question isn’t whether verbal threats are appropriate or even whether they merit punishment; the question is whether statements like the one Ms. Williams made the other night represent a literal threat of violence.

Conclusion

As safety directors, you guys are likely to find yourself having to judge whether verbal threats made by workers should be taken at face value or dismissed as emotional statements of hyperbole. I’ll offer some guidance based on case law that you can use to carry out this task in Part 2, next week.

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