The State Senate passed legislation on Wednesday to help employers keep employees safe at work. SB 553 by Senator Dave Cortese would establish new workplace violence prevention standards that target the types of workplace violence incidents that have become tragically common.
To name just a few, the Walgreens security guard who shot and killed Banko Brown last month had been reportedly directed by his employer to recover stolen items with a “hands on” approach. Also in April, a Home Depot employee was shot and killed while attempting to stop an active robbery at the Pleasanton store. And in 2021, a transit worker killed nine people in a rail yard in Senator Cortese’s Senate District 15, marking the deadliest mass shooting in the Bay Area.
“With growing awareness of workplace violence, California needs smarter guidelines to keep workers safe in the office or on the job site,” said Senator Cortese (D-San Jose). “Under my SB 553, employers would be prohibited from forcing their workers to confront active shoplifters, and all retail employees would be trained on how to react to active shoplifting. The legislation has other provisions that keep people safe at work. Let’s take every reasonable step to prevent another workplace assault or shooting.”
Assaults in retail establishments rose during the pandemic, according to a 2022 analysis by the New York Times. The analysis found that assaults in grocery stores grew by 63 percent from 2018 to 2020, and assaults in convenience stores grew by 75 percent.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cites workplace violence as the second leading cause of fatal occupational injury. The agency estimates that workplace violence affects nearly two million workers annually, with female workers experiencing higher rates of nonfatal injuries than their male counterparts.
Senator Cortese’s SB 553 would:
- Require employers to maintain a Violent Incident Log of all violent incidents against employees including post-incident investigations and response;
- Require all non-healthcare employers to provide active shooter training;
- Require retail employers to provide shoplifter training;
- Prohibit employers from maintaining policies that require workers to confront suspected active shoplifters;
- Include, as part of the existing Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP), an assessment of staffing levels as a cause for workplace violence incidents;
- Requires employers to include an evaluation of environmental risk factors in their Workplace Violence Prevention Plan.
- Allow an employee representative to be a petitioner for a workplace violence restraining order;
- Require employers to refer workers to wellness centers.
April 19: Senator Cortese Pushes SB 553 in Statement on Pleasanton Home Depot Shooting
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST
SB 553, as amended, Cortese. Occupational safety: workplace violence: restraining orders and workplace violence prevention plan.
Existing law authorizes any employer, whose employee has suffered unlawful violence or a credible threat of violence from any individual that can reasonably be construed to be carried out or to have been carried out at the workplace, to seek a temporary restraining order and an order after hearing on behalf of the employee and other employees at the workplace, as described.
This bill would also authorize a collective bargaining representative of an employee, as described above, to seek a temporary restraining order and an order after hearing on behalf of the employee and other employees at the workplace, as described. The bill would make various conforming changes.
Existing law, the California Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1973, imposes safety responsibilities on employers and employees, including the requirement that an employer establish, implement, and maintain an effective injury prevention program, and makes specified violations of these provisions a crime. The act is enforced by the Division of Occupational Safety and Health within the Department of Industrial Relations, including the enforcement of standards adopted by the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board.
This bill would require every employer, as defined, to also establish, implement, and maintain maintain, at all times in all of the employer’s facilities, a workplace violence prevention plan as part of the injury prevention program, as described. The bill would require the employer to record information in a violent incident log about every incident, postincident response, and workplace violence injury investigation required to be performed as part of the workplace violence prevention plan, as described. The bill would require the employer to establish and implement a system to review, at least annually and in conjunction with employees and their collective bargaining representatives, if any, the effectiveness of the workplace violence prevention plan, as described. The bill would require the employer to provide effective training to employees that addresses the workplace violence risks that employees may reasonably anticipate to encounter in their jobs, as described.
The bill would require records of workplace violence hazard identification, evaluation, and correction to be created and maintained in accordance with specified law, except as provided. The bill would provide that an employer shall not prohibit an employee from, and shall not take punitive or retaliatory action against an employee for, seeking assistance and intervention from local emergency services or law enforcement when a violent incident occurs.
Because this bill would expand the scope of a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
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