Abstract
Healthcare organizations, like all organizations, are increasingly more concerned about workplace violence. This paper discusses the collision of a cultural context that encourages macho posturing and moral panic related to highly publicized violence in schools and workplaces. At issue is the need for healthcare organizations to react to evidence of potential workplace violence but not to overreact.
THIS ARTICLE EXAMINES a labor arbitration case related to a perceived threat of violence in the workplace by an employee. To avoid a possibly harmful situation, the company fired the employee. Arbitrator Stephen M. Crow reinstated the employee and reduced the termination to a 30-day suspension. Essentially, Arbitrator Crow found that the company's case did not support the termination. At issue in this paper are the collision of a cultural context that encourages macho posturing, the moral panic related to highly publicized violence in schools and workplaces, and perhaps the use by management of that resulting collision as a pretext to take action against an employee.