You're Safer At the Office

By Flora Tartakovsky

Just one day after a Xerox repairman calmly walked into the company's Honolulu office and allegedly shot seven co-workers to death, the nightmare replayed itself in Seattle. This time the suspect was a camouflaged gunman in his 30s who fatally shot two men at a shipyard and then escaped. Both incidents--along with last July's trading-floor massacre in Atlanta, where an investor killed nine people before turning the gun on himself--attracted extensive live coverage on TV news channels. Anyone tuning in could be forgiven for thinking that the U.S. is in the grip of an epidemic of workplace homicides. Says Barry Glassner, author of The Culture of Fear: "You start wondering whether the person at the next desk has an Uzi."

But are these fears warranted? By every measure, the answer is no. With both homicides and accidental deaths steeply declining, the workplace is safer than ever. You're twice as likely to get struck by lightning as to be murdered by a co-worker. While the number of homicides among co-workers in 1998 remained roughly the same as in 1993, the odds of being murdered by a colleague have declined because the work force has grown by 12 million since then. Workplace homicides of all types (whether by workers or strangers) have fallen from 1,074 in 1993 to 709 in 1998--largely because of the drop in violent crimes like convenience-store robberies. And accidental deaths on the job are down as fewer Americans are employed in such dangerous occupations as mining and heavy manufacturing. Says Guy Toscano, a program manager for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: "Being at work is safer than being out in the general population."

The decline in workplace homicides can be credited in part to tough initiatives by companies after a string of postal-worker shootings in the early '90s. Most of these programs involve zero tolerance for threats or violence, require conflict resolution among colleagues and offer tips on what workers should do if they're threatened or attacked. Meanwhile, at gas stations and other retail businesses, such security measures as silent alarms, buzzer locks and bulletproof glass have contributed to a 46% drop in robbery homicides over the past five years.

Yet even the best precautions can't ensure that a tragedy won't happen. Byran Uyesugi, the suspected gunman in the Xerox shootings, underwent anger counseling in 1993 after threatening a supervisor. His brother Dennis said Uyesugi showed no warning signs right before the killings and "wasn't upset about anything." After the shooting, Uyesugi waved goodbye to a stunned co-worker as he fled in a car. Police negotiated with Uyesugi for five hours before he finally surrendered. In court, he pleaded not guilty to murder charges.

Witnesses to the Seattle shooting said they had never seen the gunman before, but police chief Norm Stamper called it "a deliberate, calculated act." Area schools under lockdown were reopened the day after the shooting, but with the suspect still at large over the weekend, police urged residents to use extra caution. They were not, however, encouraged to stay home from work.

--By Flora Tartakovsky