Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, December 26, 1993                   TAG: 9312210252
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: F2   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: By RANDY SCHMID ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                  LENGTH: Medium

ON-THE-JOB KILLERS: LONELY, FRUSTRATED MIDDLE-AGED MEN

That profile was devised by Dennis Johnson, president of Behavior Analysts and Consultants of Stuart, Fla., and an expert on violence in the workplace.

"Threats and violence are becoming a common experience in corporate America," Johnson earlier this month told a Postal Service-sponsored forum on violence.

Murder has become the third-ranked cause of on-the-job death - No. 1 for women - Postmaster General Marvin Runyon said. Motor vehicle and machinery accidents rank first and second for men.

"Some 750 people were murdered on the job last year, and experts estimate that more than 110,000 acts of workplace violence occur annually," Runyon said. The Postal Service has suffered 10 incidents over a decade, claiming 34 lives.

Johnson told those at the meeting that a study of 125 cases of workplace violence found 97.5 percent of the people responsible were men. The average age was 36, he said, and firearms were used in 81 percent of the cases.

In nearly one-fourth of the cases, the person who committed the violence then went on to kill himself, Johnson added.

"If you don't value your own life, you're not going to value the lives of other people," he said.

Johnson said men more often turn to violence because the loss or threatened loss of a job seems a threat to their very existence, and they often see no other course.

Women more often have friends and outside support groups, while men may identify completely with a job.

In addition, he said the modern tendency to externalize blame increases the chance of violence, as people no longer see themselves as personally responsible for their problems.

This tendency to blame others, or bosses, or society, leads to a sense of injustice when individuals face problems, he explained. If they feel someone is threatening a job they are "entitled" to, violence can be the result.

Adding to the problem in some cases is a "toxic work environment" fostered by authoritarian managers who exert too much control and remove the individual worker's sense of dignity and accomplishment, he said.

In many cases, Johnson said, it is not so much the loss of a job that leads to violence as the manner in which the person is fired or laid off.

"No simplistic approach can understand and remedy workplace violence," Johnson told about 200 corporate and government officials at the conference.

The meeting opened only a day after police in Colorado arrested a man in connection with the slaying of four pizza parlor workers. Aurora, Colo., police arrested a man who had been fired from the restaurant over the summer and was said to have threatened to get even.

"Every now and then, a window of opportunity opens, giving us a chance to change the way we think and the way we live," Runyon said. "Now is the time to confront violence on the job."

The meeting was designed to explore the warning signals of potential violence and to help determine how to prevent problems, the postmaster general said.

While Runyon stressed that the Postal Service has a lower rate of violent worker death than industry in general, he also has launched studies of the problem and tightened screening of job applicants.

The agency set up a toll-free hot line for workers to call if they feel threatened or have a safety concern. It also has conducted employee discussion groups and organized a task force with management and union representatives.