High Risk of Workplace Violence: Long Working Hours and High Job Demands

Yawen Cheng

OCT 2020

Based on the statistics from the Bureau of Labor Insurance, the major types of occupational diseases compensated include: musculoskeletal disorders, pneumoconiosis, and work-related cardiovascular diseases. In 2019, it recognized 744 cases, musculoskeletal disorders accounted for a large share, total 475 cases, accounting for 63.8% (included occupational low back pain, diseases caused by vibration, arm, neck and shoulder diseases); the next was pneumoconiosis and its complications which recognized 138 cases, accounting for 18.55%, rank the third was work-related cardiovascular diseases which recognized 60 cases, accounting for 8.1%, the rest is less than 1%, except pulmonary asbestosis (2.15%), biological hazards (1.75%), mental disease (1.08%).

Occupational psychosocial hazards

The occupational diseases caused by psychosocial hazards during the period from 2011 to 2019, the number of work-related cardiovascular diseases was 679 in 9 years, 236 cases were fatal. Move on to analyze the approval rate in 2019, only 60 cases were approved (approval rate was 30.61%).

As regard to work-related mental diseases, in contrast to Japan and South Korea where work-related mental disorders have been increasingly recognized and compensated as occupational diseases, Taiwan recognized much fewer cases. A total of 36 cases were compensated, including 7 fatal cases over the past 9 years. There were 29 cases applied in 2019, only 8 cases were compensated, approval rate was 27.59% in 2019. Taiwan did not have statistics concerning the types of mental diseases, but it is believed post-traumatic stress disorders and major depression accounted for a large share.

It is unclear how severe work-related suicide might be in Taiwan, based on the statistics from the of Bureau of Labor Insure there were only 7 fatal cases. It was hard to know what was actually happening in Taiwan, but we suspected that this problem might not be as severe as in Japan and South Korea, as the population’s suicide mortality of Taiwan were lower than that in Japan and Korea, for both men and women. However, working hours are quite long in Taiwan, ranking among the tops in numerous statistics. According to the Ministry of Labor international statistics, Taiwan average annual working hours per worker was 2,028, was next to Singapore (2,324), Mexico (2,137), Costa Rica (2,060), ranked fourth.

Findings from various surveys showed that the groups are prone to long working hours are lorry drivers, delivery workers, bus/public transportation drivers, security guard, beauty salon workers, health care workers (physicians, interns and nurses), financial/Insurance personal, real estate brokers, convenience store workers worker in entertainment industry, engineers and assemblers in manufacturing industry, etc. Meanwhile, many workers of above groups also have additional risks of irregular or night shifts. Both long working hours and irregular work shift are known to increase the risks of cardiovascular diseases.

Except long working hours, other factors of psychosocial hazards have been one of major concerns of occupational health policies in Taiwan. The definition of workplace violence being used by several studies of International Labor Organization (ILO), World Health Organization (WHO), International Council of Nurses (ICN), Public Services International (PSI) is: “Incidents where staff are abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances related to their work, including commuting to and from work, involving an explicit or implicit challenge to their safety, well being or health”. Workplace violence includes four types: physical violence (beating); verbal violence (insulting, harassment and sarcastic comments); psychological violence (threatening, intimidating, discrimination, edging someone out) and sexual harassment (the action or words of sex involvement or sexual implications). The sources of workplace violence could be out of the workplace (customers, clients) or within the workplace (supervisors or peers). All these different types of violence caused a threat to workers’ personal safety and mental health. It has been one of major concerns of occupational health policies in many countries.

Based on numerous studies, workplace violence risk factors include night or rotating, high time pressure, greater physical loads, job insecurity, negative relationship at work and lower workplace justices and so on. And it affects workers’ physical and psychological health.

Research and survey of workplace violence in Taiwan

We have conducted a survey in 2013 to realize the prevalence of workplace violence and its association with the health status of Taiwanese employees, and found that the workers at high risks of workplace violence with following work characteristics: night or rotating shifts, longer working hours, greater workloads, greater physical loads, job insecurity and lower workplace justices.

The survey found that verbal violence was the most common form of workplace violence over the previous 12 months, the next was psychological violence. The prevalence rates of workplace violence in men: verbal violence 6.80%, psychological violence 3.39%, physical violence 0.81%, and sexual harassment 0.38%, and the prevalence of any workplace violence was 9.35%. The prevalence rates of workplace violence in women: verbal violence 7.48%, psychological violence 4.06%, physical violence 0.48%, and sexual harassment 1.70% and the prevalence of any workplace violence was 9.35%.

We stratified by type of occupation and the finding showed that among the male participants, certain type of occupation was at high risk of workplace violence including security personnel, manual workers. Among the female participants, those who are in healthcare sectors, finance and commercial sectors, consumer services, and sales who are at high risk of workplace violence. It showed that workplace violence has been specifically linked to contact with people or customers, handle the dark side of workplace behavior, deal with negative emotions or other disturbed feelings.

We examined it by psychosocial work conditions, and found the risk factors including night or rotating shift (relative to day shift), long working hours (49 working hours or more per week), psychological job demands, high physical job demands, job insecurity, and low workplace justice were related to high workplace violence.

Examined the association between the experiences of workplace violence and their health outcomes with adjustment of some other factors. And it showed that the experience of workplace violence had an effect on a number of the health problems, including poor sleep quality, poor health status, emotional distress and low job satisfaction. Among the four types of the workplace violence (physical violence, verbal violence, psychological violence, and sexual harassment) which we studied, it showed that the psychological type appears to have the strongest association with poor health.

The survey also found that, compared with other three types of violence (verbal, physical, sexual harassment), psychological violence was more closely related to workers’ physical and mental health, the main reason for the close correlation. The main reason for the close correlation could be that comparing with verbal, physical violence, sexual harassment psychological violence in workplace are more closely related to prolonged stress at workplace and the overall atmosphere and culture of a workplace.

In addition, based on survey data in a nation-wide were conducted in years 2010 and 2013, our finding showed that the workplace violence has been increasing in this study period.

Government is empowered to enforce a duty on employers to prevent employees from violence and provide a secure environment

In the aftermath of workplace violence, employer usually tends to let sleeping dogs lie. It may fail to improve the workplace and increase the potential for workplace violence. Heavy jobs demand, poor management and lack of solution to fight violence, which may increase the risk of workplace violence. Take reference from the experience of other countries, we could find that several countries have passed legislation that enforce a duty on employers to prevent violence against employees. Take United States as example, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has focused its efforts in preventing workplace violence on developing guidance documents for industries with employees who perform tasks with a recognized risk for workplace violence.

There was nothing else than Article 483-1 of the Civil Code: “The employee performs the services, under circumstances his life, body, health may be endangered, the employer shall prevent by necessary means according to such circumstance.” Article 8 of the Labor Standards Act: “An employer shall take precautions for the safety and benefit of his / her hired workers against occupational hazards, create a proper working conditions and provide welfare facilities. All safety, sanitation and welfare matters related thereto shall be governed by the regulations of applicable statutes.” These regulations enforced a duty on employers to maintain the safety and security of employees and prevent occupational hazards from workers. But workplace violence was often neglected due to the law that defined a hazard in vague terms.

Until the Legislative Yuan passed the amendment of Occupational Safety and Health Act (implemented in July 2014), imposing a duty on employer to prevent workplace violence of Art.6.2.3:” To prevent wrongful physical or mental harm caused by the actions of others during the execution of job duties.” There is express statutory provision which any of the following violations shall be subject to a fine of no less than NT$30,000 but no more than NT$150,000.

The Act requires employers have to take preventive measures implementation including hazard identification and risk assessment, workplace design, suitable work arrangement, conduct construction, training of risk communication prevents, incident procedure, program effectiveness and improvement, and so on. Employers have to keep executive records for 3 years. Business entities employing 100 or more laborers shall create prevention plan and implement it according to the risk of tasks.Workplace environment, company culture and management are major barriers to effective implementation of workplace violence programs. The Act may be not put into effect. The government's immediate priority has to implement and propagate the regulations in order to protect and provide a safe and healthful workplace for all workers.

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