Economic uncertainty boils over in workplace

Posted by Ross Arrowsmith on Thursday, March 26th 2009 under Workplace Violence

Waves of workers taking up arms have begun to give executives around the world something other than the bottom line to worry about.

Among employees fed up with layoffs and cutbacks linked to the floundering economy, conventional labour negotiations are falling out of favour. Their substitute? More pointed tactics, particularly in France, where workers at several factories have been opting to hold managers hostage, and in one case, pelt them with eggs, to win concessions in the boardroom.

At a manufacturing plant south of Paris owned by U.S.-based 3M Co., the firm’s director of French operations endured his second day of captivity at the hands of angry workers yesterday. The employees want better severance packages for those laid off, and better conditions for those keeping their jobs. A similar employee-driven hostage-taking ended peacefully earlier this month at Sony’s French facilities. In Reims, employees upset over a plant closing burst into a management meeting and plastered their bosses with eggs.

The spate of incidents, not confined to France, has caught the attention of workplace violence experts who are trying to discern whether the economic downturn has launched a global rise in workplace aggression.

“This recession is probably different than all others … predictions are fewer people will be able to get the same job with the same salary at the end of this,” said Julian Barling, an associate dean at Queen’s School of Business who specializes in workplace aggression and leadership.

“When people perceive such a massive threat to their well-being, it’s more likely violence will occur,” he said, adding: “People will go after who they see as being the bad guys.”

In most incidents, the finger is pointed at chief executive officers or senior managers perceived to have run a company into the ground or instituted layoffs. Prof. Barling pointed out that in most cases, it’s not the layoffs themselves that provoke employee outbursts.

“It’s how you do it,” he said. “People don’t like laying other people off. So what do we do? We try and do it as quickly as possible. We make the whole thing non-emotional, because emotions make us feel uncomfortable.”

But it’s the iciness that can incite workers to take things into their own hands – literally. In the United States, gun dealers are attributing a near 30-per-cent increase in firearms purchases during the first two months of this year to spikes in fears of social and economic upheaval.

In November, U.S. software engineer Jing Wu, terminated from his job at startup SiPort Inc., returned to the firm’s Santa Clara, Calif., offices a few hours later and asked for a meeting with the CEO, a vice-president and the HR manager. The four went into a conference room and Mr. Wu allegedly pulled out a handgun and shot all three to death. He now faces murder charges. Although reportedly laid off for performance, many fear similar events as the number of layoffs grows.

Glenn French of social research firm Canadian Initiative on Workplace Violence, said the most aggressive workplace incidents often percolate for months. “It’s rarely just a snap,” he said. “There’s a long period of time where someone feels put up, feels treated unjustly. When people start to feel that way, they will start to push back and formulate a target: someone who needs to be dealt with,” he said.

In Scotland, the most recent high-profile target was Sir Fred Goodwin, the disgraced former head of Royal Bank of Scotland. Sir Fred left his job with an annual pension of about $1.2-million, news of which allegedly prompted vandals to smash windows at his Edinburgh home yesterday, as well as the rear window of his Mercedes. “There are mental disorders that will precipitate this kind of stuff,” said Mr. French, who believes employees have become more aggressive than ever before. “But most people, they’re like you and I. They’ve been pushed and pushed and pushed, and there’s a breaking point.”

Ugly incidents
Last September, a mob of angry factory workers in suburban New Delhi bludgeoned to death the CEO of Italian-owned car parts manufacturer Graziano Transmissioni. The executive, 47-year-old Lalit Kishore Choudhary, had called a meeting with employees who were dismissed after an earlier outbreak of violence at the plant to discuss their reinstatement. Before negotiations began, he sustained fatal head injuries, reported Times Online.

Shortly after the New York firm Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, then-CEO Richard Fuld went to the company gym for a workout. CNBC reported that while Mr. Fuld was there, wearing a heart monitor and running on a treadmill, a person lifting weights “walked over and knocked him out cold.”