April 28, 2025 • 18 mins
Realities of Workplace Violence with Andria Lure Ryan
Steve Armstrong of Armstrong and Peake PLLC and Jennifer White of Peterson White LLP interview Attorney Andria Lure Ryan of Fisher & Phillips regarding hospitality worker fatalities caused by workplace violence. Andria discusses the realities of workplace violence in the hospitality industry where employees are exposed to danger in areas such as bars, hotels, resorts, and other places. Andria also provides practical methods of preventing workplace fatalities for all employers including the hospitality industry.
To learn more about DRI and the Workers' Compensation Committee visit www.DRI.org.
#DRILawyer
#DRICommunity
Steve Armstrong of Armstrong and Peake PLLC and Jennifer White of Peterson White LLP interview Attorney Andria Lure Ryan of Fisher & Phillips regarding hospitality worker fatalities caused by workplace violence. Andria discusses the realities of workplace violence in the hospitality industry where employees are exposed to danger in areas such as bars, hotels, resorts, and other places. Andria also provides practical methods of preventing workplace fatalities for all employers including the hospitality industry.
To learn more about DRI and the Workers' Compensation Committee visit www.DRI.org.
#DRILawyer
#DRICommunity
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome back to another episode of the comp Conversations podcast,
a podcast developed through d r I where we explore
the world of workers conversation, including the personal aspects involved
in the realm of work injuries and it's litigation, as
well as future trends in every aspect in between. My
name is Steve Armstrong and I'm here with Jennifer White
and we are delighted to have Andrea Ryan with us today.
(00:42):
Welcome to the podcast. Andrea. Thanks Steve, happy to be
here and welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Welcome Jennifer. Thank you Steve.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Okay, Andrea, thank you again for being on our podcast today.
Can you tell us about yourself?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yes, Steve, I'm an employment lawyer.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I'm with Well.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I'm a partner with Fisherroom Phillips in their Atlanta office.
We're a firm that does exclusively employment law, representing management
and I co share our hospitality practice groups. So the
vast majority of my work is in that industry, representing
hotels and resorts and restaurants and everything that makes up
the hospitality industry. It's a unique industry. It's kind of
(01:22):
its own quirks.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Okay, and so do you advise clients on all sorts
of issues or is it primarily hospitality? Is it on
things other than I know we're talking about workplace violence today,
but what is the scope of yours?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Everything employment related, Steve, It's everything from harassment, discrimination, workplace safety, immigration, compliance,
roleful terminations, leaves of absence. So it's I have a
very compliance based practice, less litigation, more compliance. So do
(02:02):
a lot of management training to make sure management teams
in the industry know what their obligations are their employees.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Andrew, part of your practice is that you train employers
or advise them on workplace dangers and workplace fatalities.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Is that correct? It is? I am My particular expertise
is not workplace safety, but in advising hospitality clients, I
try to you know, I try to be familiar with
all aspects of employment law, which will just include workplace safety.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
And well, you did read your recent article on hospitality
worker fatalities. Great article, but I was surprised that about
the statistics on workplace fatalities in the hospitality industry. Where
did you get that research for those statistics?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
That information comes from OSHA. So the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration, which is under the Department of Labor, the
Federal Department of Labor has reporting requirements, and so every
workplace injury, no matter how minor, is reported annually.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
But with a fatality or a.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Serious injury, which is going to be a hospitalization, overnight hospitalization, amputation,
or the loss of an eye, you have significant, you know,
more strict reporting requirements. An employer has to report a
fatality within eight hours of the fatality and twenty four
hours within twenty four hours of a hospitalization, amputation of
the loss of an eye. So OSHA keeps those statistics
(03:34):
and when we can look at them every year.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
And how do you define hospitality or how do the
agencies enforcing these laws define hospitality?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Is about that's a great question, Jennifer, because hospitality is
it's a really wide range. It's restaurants, and restaurants are
going to include everything from quick service like fast food
restaurants to fine dining then and everything in between. And
then on the hotel side, you're going to have you know,
extended stay hotels, which are you know, hotels where people
(04:05):
stay for long periods of time, limited service all the
way up through everything in between to resorts, golf courses, spas,
those kinds of things. And then you're also going to
have casinos, gaming, the gaming industry is going to fall
under that umbrella as well, probably breweries and wineries as well.
So everything that makes people, you know, have an enjoyment
(04:26):
in life, the stuff you do on vacation, right.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Injury, your articles, sorry, your article seems surprising to me
that about half of the workplace fatalities in the hospitality
industry come from workplace violence. Can you give us some
examples of the types of violence that we're talking about here?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, I think it's important, Steve, to look at it
a little bit, maybe a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I can give you some examples for sure.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
But you know, in construction and manufacturing, we know those
are dangerous jobs, right. People are exposed to machineries and
for cliffs and and and heavy equipment, and so in hospitality,
I think we're all a little always a little surprised
that there are going to be any significant, you know,
workplace injuries, much less fatalities. But with regard to injuries,
you know, there's folks in the hospitality industry that work
(05:17):
with knives, there's engineers that fix equipment, so there is
some not as much as construction, for example. But the
real factor, I think one of the real factors in
hospitality is you've got third party guests and customers, and
we don't screen those, and so we it's you know,
we don't know who they are, we don't know what.
(05:38):
You know, they walk in, they have weapons, sometimes they
have mental illnesses, they drink alcohol, and so what you
what you may see is fights in a bar or
at a fast food restaurant. I know we've all seen
these memes on TikTok and elsewhere where. People are you know,
flying across the counter because they're upset that their order
(06:02):
isn't isn't appropriate. I mean it is, It's a reality.
And so I think the real factor is that third
party customer slash guest, you know, that we just don't control, right,
And I guess they're also in hotels, I'm sorry, Steve,
in hotels there there we've got housekeepers that go into
people's rooms and in room dining folks that go into
(06:22):
people's rooms that are not necessarily you know, protected, and
we don't you know, we don't know who's in there
sometimes what they might be doing.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Right, And you know, I've seen cases where bouncers were
injured or they injured other people. I've also seen police
officers be injured or read of cases where police officers died.
I've not handled that type of case, but I think
we've also seen people injured in construction, injuries when they fall,
when they get hit with the piece of steel, nurses
(06:54):
as well. But you know, is there any any detail
on the most dangerous type of workplace violence in the
hospitality industry that you could think of?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Well, I think the most common almost every workforce outside
of the really heavy construction industries, is domestic violence that
finds its way to work, which is going to be
considered a workplace injury or fatality as well. So I
think that is that is probably the most common.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
You and hopefully you did get the separation, but did
you have any statistics on the number of deaths due
to workplace violence in the past year or two just
in the hospitality industry?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well, in the hospitality industry and the just I have
twenty twenty three statistics, and that was two hundred and
sixty five fatalities in leisure and hospitality, significantly smaller than
the oneenty seventy five in construction. Any any fatality is
too much, But two hundred and sixty five people lost
(08:06):
their lives at in some leisure hospitality setting.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
This is kind of this made me think of it,
but I mean, just from COVID, have have you seen
and I don't know that you have the statistics to
support this, but has there been a big rise in
fatality since COVID hasn't made an effect in the hospitality industry?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Or is it it had an effect because it's shut
down a good number of right, you know, operators, So
we just the numbers are increasing, but that's probably a
little skewed because we've got more employees back to work
once once the reopening happened after COVID, So there's been
a slight increase, but again that's to be expected. There's
(08:47):
been an increase in all kinds of filings in this
industry and others because hospitality really did shut down for
a good year during COVID. But you know, hospitality employers
have really have really had to be very creative about
violence and not just fatalities, but violence against their employees.
(09:07):
So I'm not sure if you're familiar with the with
panic buttons. Many housekeepers on their carts are on their
person wear panic buttons so that they can press the
button if they're in a room, we're entering into a
room where where there's where they.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
They're being assaulted, or they are worried about assault.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Or something, and they alert either security or the police.
That's That's kind of was.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
My next question, like what are the types? So that's
a that's obviously a measure that the employers taking to
protect our employees, But what other kinds of fatalities could
be prevented with just employer measures.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Well, I think having no violence policy, I think it's
important in the hospitality industry or elsewhere. I think we've
got to tell our employees, in writing in their handbook
what our expectations are of their behavior and what to
do if there's violence or if they even have the
threat of violence. If I write a no violence policy,
it also deals with if you've got a restraining order
(10:11):
against someone, and we need to know not somebody you
work with, but somebody outside of work.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Who are they, what do they look like, Give us
a picture, give.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Us the restrictions of the restraining order so that we can,
you know, assist in implementing it or whatever. So I
think you also have to add I think hospitality, and
I think the industry does this already sort of systematically,
or at least most of my clients do. And that's
identify your high risk employees. So your front desk, they
(10:38):
have day to day contact, They're going to. Every angry
guest is going to deal with the front desk, agent, housekeepers.
Anybody that goes in your room, unattended room, that's you know, unsupervised.
Bartenders and servers in a restaurant have to worry about
a guest who gets out of hand that they have
had too much to drink. But thankfully there's usually other
(10:59):
people around when that happens that can that can help
and intervene. But sometimes you have to think about employees
that don't that are that are you know, unsupervised around
guests who may be, you know, not acting appropriately. Anybody
that enters a guest room, for example.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Andrea, correct me if I'm wrong, But your firm defends
UH employers in OSHIA claims UH regarding death claims.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Is that correct any kind of OSHA claim? Yes?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
And are there mandatory regulations that management in the hospitality
industy industry has to follow for preventing violence or are
these OSHIA uh publications. Are they optional?
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Are they guidelines?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Well, there's some.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Every OSHA has a lot of specific requirements you know,
in their regulations, but really often that we well, you
know the construction industry for example, fall protection and personal
uh PPE and in the hot hospitality industry, the majority
(12:02):
of the Ocean regulations that we deal with are similar.
Engineering has you know, protections, you know, electrical things like that,
But with regard to your average employee who's not dealing
with heavy equipment, it's really their general duty standard. And
every employer, no matter what they are, has a general
duty to keep your employees safe. And so that's that's
really the standard that we we find most of our
(12:25):
requirements under. In any penalties, if the Ocean is going
to do an inspection and either based upon a complaint
or a random inspection, they are going to look at
whether we are keeping generally keeping our employees safe.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Have you seen employers find in the hospitality industry for
lack of violence, for mention or you know, what kind
of finds have you seen in that perspective?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Well, I mean, I'm you know, I don't throw my
clients under the bus, but most of my clients and
most of our clients I think are in very good shape.
They have the right policies and procedures in place a
matter of implementation. But you know, and other than serious violation.
So OSHA characterizes their violations as other than serious and
(13:13):
serious and an other than serious violation is subject to
a sixteen five hundred and fifty dollars fine per violation,
and a serious or repeated violation, a willful or repeated violation,
it's gonna be one hundred and sixty five thousand plus penalty.
And so that's really how the agency works. They come in,
they do an inspection. Sometimes it's random, rarely because they
(13:33):
don't have a lot of resources, but usually it's based
upon some complaint, and they come in, they do an inspection,
probably wall to wall that even if they got to
complain about one thing, they're going to look.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
At your whole operation.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
And then they'll issue penalties and then the employers, whether
they argue about them, fight about them, negotiate them, or
go to administrative law judge to fight the penalty.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
That's really the legal process.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
For for OSHA and so Andrea, you talked about the
zero violence policy, and maybe one other thing there in
terms of what employers can do, and I'm looking at
your article here, what are the other things that employers
can do to prevent workplace violence and workplace fatalities in
(14:21):
the hospitality industry.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Well, I think they should do annual training on violence prevention.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
They need to do.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Training on de escalating high stress situations, because when again
a guest who is raising their voice, standing there with
their hands on their hips, you know, demanding things, we
need to train most most people don't really get that
kind of training. We certainly don't get it in school.
So de escalation training and training where we and I
(14:53):
know many many people here hear this and find it
to be hard to swallow, but not to apprehend. And
a guest or a customer who steals something runs out
the door, that kind of thing, I just don't put
yourself in harm's way training, But also active shooter training.
I would add to that the list of of you know,
(15:16):
as as awful as it sounds, I think I think
it's important that we do all of those for our employees,
and most employees appreciate that their employer is paying attention
to these issues. I think it's also to be careful
about access to the building. I mean, we've all stayed
in hotels where you have to have a key card
right to get in after certain hours. You'd be surprised
(15:36):
how many hotels have just they don't either they don't work,
or that that's for side doors you need a key card,
but the front door is wide open right after midnight,
where bad things happen right in the dark. Be careful
about financial transactions where you know, go as cashless as
possible if you can. I always want to encourage hotels, resorts,
(16:00):
restaurants to collaborate with their local law enforcement. It is
really important to know you know who the local sheriff
is or who the law and have you know, make
sure you can pick up the phone and call them
and have them you know, in your property very quickly
if you need to.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Andrew, these are all great suggestions. I appreciate that very much.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Well, I think it's important that that employers be proactive.
It's sort of like harassment, sexual harassment. In the old days, right,
we all said, well, well we shouldn't really talk about this.
Because we talk about it, something bad's going to happen
and people are going to start making complaints. And I
think we've all learned over the years. You know, let's
talk about it so that we can tell our employees
what our expectations are about their behavior and what to
(16:44):
do if something bad happens. And I think the same
here for violence and bad behaving guests. Right, if something happens,
you know, see something, say something. We hope this never
happens to you, but if it does, here's what we
expect you to do. Clients. All the time, we trained
the SPA industry, and I have a lot of resort
(17:04):
clients that have spas. The SPA industry is very proactive
about training their employees about what to do if someone
in a treatment room does something inappropriate. I mean, because
it happens, right, we tell them what to say, how
to handle themselves, how to walk out of the room.
We need to do that for other employees in this
(17:25):
industry that have interactions with guests and customers who may
get uncomfortable, loud, disruptive, or violent. Great advice.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
So thank you very much for being with us today,
and we appreciate your time. If our listeners want to
contact you, how can they find you, Well.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
They can find me at Fisherfilips dot com. I'm in
the Atlanta office and my email is a Ryan at
Fisherphillips dot com. Happy to happy to consult with anybody
that may need some help. Great, Thank you so much,
thank you, thanks for having me
Welcome back to another episode of the comp Conversations podcast,
a podcast developed through d r I where we explore
the world of workers conversation, including the personal aspects involved
in the realm of work injuries and it's litigation, as
well as future trends in every aspect in between. My
name is Steve Armstrong and I'm here with Jennifer White
and we are delighted to have Andrea Ryan with us today.
(00:42):
Welcome to the podcast. Andrea. Thanks Steve, happy to be
here and welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Welcome Jennifer. Thank you Steve.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Okay, Andrea, thank you again for being on our podcast today.
Can you tell us about yourself?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yes, Steve, I'm an employment lawyer.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I'm with Well.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I'm a partner with Fisherroom Phillips in their Atlanta office.
We're a firm that does exclusively employment law, representing management
and I co share our hospitality practice groups. So the
vast majority of my work is in that industry, representing
hotels and resorts and restaurants and everything that makes up
the hospitality industry. It's a unique industry. It's kind of
(01:22):
its own quirks.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Okay, and so do you advise clients on all sorts
of issues or is it primarily hospitality? Is it on
things other than I know we're talking about workplace violence today,
but what is the scope of yours?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Everything employment related, Steve, It's everything from harassment, discrimination, workplace safety, immigration, compliance,
roleful terminations, leaves of absence. So it's I have a
very compliance based practice, less litigation, more compliance. So do
(02:02):
a lot of management training to make sure management teams
in the industry know what their obligations are their employees.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Andrew, part of your practice is that you train employers
or advise them on workplace dangers and workplace fatalities.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Is that correct? It is? I am My particular expertise
is not workplace safety, but in advising hospitality clients, I
try to you know, I try to be familiar with
all aspects of employment law, which will just include workplace safety.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
And well, you did read your recent article on hospitality
worker fatalities. Great article, but I was surprised that about
the statistics on workplace fatalities in the hospitality industry. Where
did you get that research for those statistics?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
That information comes from OSHA. So the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration, which is under the Department of Labor, the
Federal Department of Labor has reporting requirements, and so every
workplace injury, no matter how minor, is reported annually.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
But with a fatality or a.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Serious injury, which is going to be a hospitalization, overnight hospitalization, amputation,
or the loss of an eye, you have significant, you know,
more strict reporting requirements. An employer has to report a
fatality within eight hours of the fatality and twenty four
hours within twenty four hours of a hospitalization, amputation of
the loss of an eye. So OSHA keeps those statistics
(03:34):
and when we can look at them every year.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
And how do you define hospitality or how do the
agencies enforcing these laws define hospitality?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Is about that's a great question, Jennifer, because hospitality is
it's a really wide range. It's restaurants, and restaurants are
going to include everything from quick service like fast food
restaurants to fine dining then and everything in between. And
then on the hotel side, you're going to have you know,
extended stay hotels, which are you know, hotels where people
(04:05):
stay for long periods of time, limited service all the
way up through everything in between to resorts, golf courses, spas,
those kinds of things. And then you're also going to
have casinos, gaming, the gaming industry is going to fall
under that umbrella as well, probably breweries and wineries as well.
So everything that makes people, you know, have an enjoyment
(04:26):
in life, the stuff you do on vacation, right.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Injury, your articles, sorry, your article seems surprising to me
that about half of the workplace fatalities in the hospitality
industry come from workplace violence. Can you give us some
examples of the types of violence that we're talking about here?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, I think it's important, Steve, to look at it
a little bit, maybe a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I can give you some examples for sure.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
But you know, in construction and manufacturing, we know those
are dangerous jobs, right. People are exposed to machineries and
for cliffs and and and heavy equipment, and so in hospitality,
I think we're all a little always a little surprised
that there are going to be any significant, you know,
workplace injuries, much less fatalities. But with regard to injuries,
you know, there's folks in the hospitality industry that work
(05:17):
with knives, there's engineers that fix equipment, so there is
some not as much as construction, for example. But the
real factor, I think one of the real factors in
hospitality is you've got third party guests and customers, and
we don't screen those, and so we it's you know,
we don't know who they are, we don't know what.
(05:38):
You know, they walk in, they have weapons, sometimes they
have mental illnesses, they drink alcohol, and so what you
what you may see is fights in a bar or
at a fast food restaurant. I know we've all seen
these memes on TikTok and elsewhere where. People are you know,
flying across the counter because they're upset that their order
(06:02):
isn't isn't appropriate. I mean it is, It's a reality.
And so I think the real factor is that third
party customer slash guest, you know, that we just don't control, right,
And I guess they're also in hotels, I'm sorry, Steve,
in hotels there there we've got housekeepers that go into
people's rooms and in room dining folks that go into
(06:22):
people's rooms that are not necessarily you know, protected, and
we don't you know, we don't know who's in there
sometimes what they might be doing.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Right, And you know, I've seen cases where bouncers were
injured or they injured other people. I've also seen police
officers be injured or read of cases where police officers died.
I've not handled that type of case, but I think
we've also seen people injured in construction, injuries when they fall,
when they get hit with the piece of steel, nurses
(06:54):
as well. But you know, is there any any detail
on the most dangerous type of workplace violence in the
hospitality industry that you could think of?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Well, I think the most common almost every workforce outside
of the really heavy construction industries, is domestic violence that
finds its way to work, which is going to be
considered a workplace injury or fatality as well. So I
think that is that is probably the most common.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
You and hopefully you did get the separation, but did
you have any statistics on the number of deaths due
to workplace violence in the past year or two just
in the hospitality industry?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well, in the hospitality industry and the just I have
twenty twenty three statistics, and that was two hundred and
sixty five fatalities in leisure and hospitality, significantly smaller than
the oneenty seventy five in construction. Any any fatality is
too much, But two hundred and sixty five people lost
(08:06):
their lives at in some leisure hospitality setting.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
This is kind of this made me think of it,
but I mean, just from COVID, have have you seen
and I don't know that you have the statistics to
support this, but has there been a big rise in
fatality since COVID hasn't made an effect in the hospitality industry?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Or is it it had an effect because it's shut
down a good number of right, you know, operators, So
we just the numbers are increasing, but that's probably a
little skewed because we've got more employees back to work
once once the reopening happened after COVID, So there's been
a slight increase, but again that's to be expected. There's
(08:47):
been an increase in all kinds of filings in this
industry and others because hospitality really did shut down for
a good year during COVID. But you know, hospitality employers
have really have really had to be very creative about
violence and not just fatalities, but violence against their employees.
(09:07):
So I'm not sure if you're familiar with the with
panic buttons. Many housekeepers on their carts are on their
person wear panic buttons so that they can press the
button if they're in a room, we're entering into a
room where where there's where they.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
They're being assaulted, or they are worried about assault.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Or something, and they alert either security or the police.
That's That's kind of was.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
My next question, like what are the types? So that's
a that's obviously a measure that the employers taking to
protect our employees, But what other kinds of fatalities could
be prevented with just employer measures.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Well, I think having no violence policy, I think it's
important in the hospitality industry or elsewhere. I think we've
got to tell our employees, in writing in their handbook
what our expectations are of their behavior and what to
do if there's violence or if they even have the
threat of violence. If I write a no violence policy,
it also deals with if you've got a restraining order
(10:11):
against someone, and we need to know not somebody you
work with, but somebody outside of work.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Who are they, what do they look like, Give us
a picture, give.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Us the restrictions of the restraining order so that we can,
you know, assist in implementing it or whatever. So I
think you also have to add I think hospitality, and
I think the industry does this already sort of systematically,
or at least most of my clients do. And that's
identify your high risk employees. So your front desk, they
(10:38):
have day to day contact, They're going to. Every angry
guest is going to deal with the front desk, agent, housekeepers.
Anybody that goes in your room, unattended room, that's you know, unsupervised.
Bartenders and servers in a restaurant have to worry about
a guest who gets out of hand that they have
had too much to drink. But thankfully there's usually other
(10:59):
people around when that happens that can that can help
and intervene. But sometimes you have to think about employees
that don't that are that are you know, unsupervised around
guests who may be, you know, not acting appropriately. Anybody
that enters a guest room, for example.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Andrea, correct me if I'm wrong, But your firm defends
UH employers in OSHIA claims UH regarding death claims.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Is that correct any kind of OSHA claim? Yes?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
And are there mandatory regulations that management in the hospitality
industy industry has to follow for preventing violence or are
these OSHIA uh publications. Are they optional?
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Are they guidelines?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Well, there's some.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Every OSHA has a lot of specific requirements you know,
in their regulations, but really often that we well, you
know the construction industry for example, fall protection and personal
uh PPE and in the hot hospitality industry, the majority
(12:02):
of the Ocean regulations that we deal with are similar.
Engineering has you know, protections, you know, electrical things like that,
But with regard to your average employee who's not dealing
with heavy equipment, it's really their general duty standard. And
every employer, no matter what they are, has a general
duty to keep your employees safe. And so that's that's
really the standard that we we find most of our
(12:25):
requirements under. In any penalties, if the Ocean is going
to do an inspection and either based upon a complaint
or a random inspection, they are going to look at
whether we are keeping generally keeping our employees safe.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Have you seen employers find in the hospitality industry for
lack of violence, for mention or you know, what kind
of finds have you seen in that perspective?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Well, I mean, I'm you know, I don't throw my
clients under the bus, but most of my clients and
most of our clients I think are in very good shape.
They have the right policies and procedures in place a
matter of implementation. But you know, and other than serious violation.
So OSHA characterizes their violations as other than serious and
(13:13):
serious and an other than serious violation is subject to
a sixteen five hundred and fifty dollars fine per violation,
and a serious or repeated violation, a willful or repeated violation,
it's gonna be one hundred and sixty five thousand plus penalty.
And so that's really how the agency works. They come in,
they do an inspection. Sometimes it's random, rarely because they
(13:33):
don't have a lot of resources, but usually it's based
upon some complaint, and they come in, they do an inspection,
probably wall to wall that even if they got to
complain about one thing, they're going to look.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
At your whole operation.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
And then they'll issue penalties and then the employers, whether
they argue about them, fight about them, negotiate them, or
go to administrative law judge to fight the penalty.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
That's really the legal process.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
For for OSHA and so Andrea, you talked about the
zero violence policy, and maybe one other thing there in
terms of what employers can do, and I'm looking at
your article here, what are the other things that employers
can do to prevent workplace violence and workplace fatalities in
(14:21):
the hospitality industry.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Well, I think they should do annual training on violence prevention.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
They need to do.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Training on de escalating high stress situations, because when again
a guest who is raising their voice, standing there with
their hands on their hips, you know, demanding things, we
need to train most most people don't really get that
kind of training. We certainly don't get it in school.
So de escalation training and training where we and I
(14:53):
know many many people here hear this and find it
to be hard to swallow, but not to apprehend. And
a guest or a customer who steals something runs out
the door, that kind of thing, I just don't put
yourself in harm's way training, But also active shooter training.
I would add to that the list of of you know,
(15:16):
as as awful as it sounds, I think I think
it's important that we do all of those for our employees,
and most employees appreciate that their employer is paying attention
to these issues. I think it's also to be careful
about access to the building. I mean, we've all stayed
in hotels where you have to have a key card
right to get in after certain hours. You'd be surprised
(15:36):
how many hotels have just they don't either they don't work,
or that that's for side doors you need a key card,
but the front door is wide open right after midnight,
where bad things happen right in the dark. Be careful
about financial transactions where you know, go as cashless as
possible if you can. I always want to encourage hotels, resorts,
(16:00):
restaurants to collaborate with their local law enforcement. It is
really important to know you know who the local sheriff
is or who the law and have you know, make
sure you can pick up the phone and call them
and have them you know, in your property very quickly
if you need to.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Andrew, these are all great suggestions. I appreciate that very much.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Well, I think it's important that that employers be proactive.
It's sort of like harassment, sexual harassment. In the old days, right,
we all said, well, well we shouldn't really talk about this.
Because we talk about it, something bad's going to happen
and people are going to start making complaints. And I
think we've all learned over the years. You know, let's
talk about it so that we can tell our employees
what our expectations are about their behavior and what to
(16:44):
do if something bad happens. And I think the same
here for violence and bad behaving guests. Right, if something happens,
you know, see something, say something. We hope this never
happens to you, but if it does, here's what we
expect you to do. Clients. All the time, we trained
the SPA industry, and I have a lot of resort
(17:04):
clients that have spas. The SPA industry is very proactive
about training their employees about what to do if someone
in a treatment room does something inappropriate. I mean, because
it happens, right, we tell them what to say, how
to handle themselves, how to walk out of the room.
We need to do that for other employees in this
(17:25):
industry that have interactions with guests and customers who may
get uncomfortable, loud, disruptive, or violent. Great advice.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
So thank you very much for being with us today,
and we appreciate your time. If our listeners want to
contact you, how can they find you, Well.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
They can find me at Fisherfilips dot com. I'm in
the Atlanta office and my email is a Ryan at
Fisherphillips dot com. Happy to happy to consult with anybody
that may need some help. Great, Thank you so much,
thank you, thanks for having me
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