S 1176 Workplace Violence Prevention for Healthcare and Social Service Workers Act

We have a bill number!

Just as previously noted, the bill was introduced on April 18th and was sent to the Senate HELP Committee on the same day. We have to work on this one if it is going to get passed. If your elected US Senator is on the HELP Committee, use the template that will be provided, personalize it (use stories—we all have them), and send this multiple times. It will take 5 minutes max to do this. As a reminder, the Senate HELP Committee members:

Bernie Sanders (Chairman, Vermont), Patty Murray (Washington), Robert Casey Jr (Pennsylvania), Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), Christopher Murphy (Connecticut), Tim Kaine (Virginia), Maggie Hassan (New Hampshire), Tina Smith (Minnesota), Ben Ray Lujan (New Mexico), John Hickenlooper (Colorado), Ed Markey (Maine), Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), Rand Paul (Kentucky), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Arkansas), Mike Braun (Indiana), Roger Marshall (Kansas), Mitt Romney (Utah), Tommy Tuberville (Alabama), Markwayne Mullin (Oklahoma), Ted Budd (North Carolina).

S 1176 Workplace Violence Prevention for Healthcare and Social Service Workers Act. This bill requires certain employers in the health care and social service sectors, and certain employers in sectors that conduct activities similar to the activities in the health care and social service sectors, to develop and implement a comprehensive workplace violence prevention plan and carry out other activities or requirements to protect health care workers, social service workers, and other personnel from workplace violence. Each developed plan shall be developed and implemented with the meaningful participation of direct care employees, other employees, and employee representatives, and the plan shall be tailored and specific to conditions and hazards for the covered facility or the covered service, including patient-specific risk factors and risk factors specific to each work area or unit; shall be suitable for the size, complexity, and type of operations at the covered facility or for the covered service, and remain in effect at all times; and may be in consultation with stakeholders or experts who specialize in workplace violence prevention, emergency response, or other related areas of expertise for all relevant aspects of the Plan. With respect to each work area and unit at the covered facility or while covered employees are performing the covered service, risk assessment and identification of workplace violence risks and hazards to employees exposed to such risks and hazards (including environmental risk factors and patient-specific risk factors). A s soon as practicable after a workplace violence incident, risk, or hazard of which a covered employer has knowledge, the employer shall conduct an investigation of such incident, risk, or hazard under which the employer shall review the circumstances of the incident, risk, or hazard, and whether any controls or measures implemented pursuant to the Plan of the employer were effective; and solicit input from involved employees, their representatives, and supervisors about the cause of the incident, risk, or hazard, and whether further corrective measures (including system-level factors) could have prevented the incident, risk, or hazard. Finally, a violence log must be maintained, and each violent incident log shall be maintained by a covered employer for each covered facility controlled by the employer and for each covered service being performed by a covered employee on behalf of such employer.