AFT Members Refuse to Accept Violence as Part of the Job

WHEREAS, violence is not, and must never be, “part of the job” for our members. The right to a safe and healthy workplace is a fundamental human right and a legal right enshrined in the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. Every worker should have the right to leave work in the same condition in which they arrived—alive, uninjured and mentally whole; and

WHEREAS,workplace violence has severe and lasting impacts on workers, including physical injury, psychological trauma, anxiety, depression, post‑traumatic stress, lost work time, disability, and in some cases permanent harm or death, with ripple effects on families, co-workers and the quality of public services; and

WHEREAS, inconsistent definitions of workplace violence across employers, occupations, states and federal agencies have contributed to underreporting, inconsistent data collection, uneven prevention efforts and gaps in worker protections, limiting the ability to fully assess the scope, causes and impact of workplace violence across AFT-represented professions; and

WHEREAS, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) classifies Type II workplace violence as violence directed at workers by clients, customers, patients, students, inmates or other recipients of services, yet the increasing incidence of threats, intimidation, harassment, assault and violence committed against educators and school staff by parents, guardians, caregivers, family members, volunteers, visitors, contractors, advocates and other non-student adults in educational settings warrants expanded recognition, research and prevention strategies; and

WHEREAS, unlike many private sector employers, numerous preK-12 school systems, higher education institutions and public employers are not required to maintain OSHA 300 injury and illness logs or comparable workplace violence reporting systems, creating dangerous gaps in accountability, hazard identification, injury surveillance and violence prevention efforts in educational settings; and

WHEREAS, AFT members in healthcare, public service, preK-12, higher education and school support staff are witness to and the victims of assault and violence at their places of employment with each constituency showing a troubling increase in both frequency and severity of violent incidents, including:

• New York’s Public Employees Federation is sounding the alarm. According to the New York State Department of Civil Service’s own FY 2024-25 Workers’ Compensation Annual Report, assaults and violent acts by persons against state employees increased 171 percent over the past five years, rising from 379 incidents in 2020-21 to 1,029 in 2024-25, making it one of the fastest-growing causes of workplace injury statewide. When combined with patient and inmate assaults, person-related violence now accounts for more than 3,500 work-related injury incidents across New York state agencies each year. This statewide trend is mirrored in PEF’s own experience: Member-reported workplace violence-related cases brought to the union’s Health and Safety Department have increased more than 1,600 percent since 2023, overwhelming existing capacity and underscoring the scale of need among frontline public employees.
• Workplace violence in the hospital setting has increased by 183 percent from 2004 to 2024.
• The rate of violent injuries in 2023 and 2024 for local government and state employees was nearly five times higher than the rate for all other private and public sector workers, with correctional workers experiencing the highest average annual victimization rate of non-fatal workplace violence (149 violent crimes per 1,000 workers compared with an average annual rate for all workers of eight violent crimes per 1,000).
• Between 2000 and 2025, there have been 398 gun-related incidents of violence on college and university campuses, with 529 fatalities and an additional 328 non-lethal gun related injuries. 
• Between 2022 and 2026, over half of the nation’s 101 historically Black colleges and universities have been targeted with a sustained wave of terroristic bomb threats, active shooter hoaxes, and violent intimidation.
• Each year 3 out of every 5 paraprofessionals report being the victim of workplace violence.
• Nationwide, reports indicate that 1 in 4 non-fatal incidents of workplace violence are directed at teachers and school support staff; and

WHEREAS, threats and assaults at work are not always within our control, they are however not typically random, isolated or unavoidable events. Many instances of workplace violence are predictable and preventable and can be significantly reduced through comprehensive prevention programs, adequate staffing, training, environmental controls and enforceable standards; and

WHEREAS, AFT members and the people who supervise them have disparate and sometimes conflicting understandings of best practice for resolving threats; and 

WHEREAS, AFT members have been disciplined by their employer for the use of violence mitigation techniques, even when those techniques have been in accordance with and promulgated by their employer; and

WHEREAS, effective workplace violence prevention programs are strongest when workers and their unions play a central role in their design, implementation, monitoring and enforcement, including risk assessments, prevention strategies, training, reporting systems and continuous evaluation:

RESOLVED, that the AFT will expand and intensify our fight to protect members in all divisions from workplace violence by centering workers’ lived experiences; demanding employer accountability; and winning enforceable protections through collective bargaining, legislation and regulation; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT will create an ad hoc cross-constituency committee charged with developing a workplace violence mitigation best practice policy guide, and constituency-specific sample collective bargaining language on workplace safety, de-escalation and crisis management; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT will develop and make available to affiliates a workplace violence data tracking and reporting tool to assist in documenting assaults, threats, harassment, domestic violence-related incidents and work-related injuries affecting members, while advancing standardized reporting requirements in public sector workplaces nationwide; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT will work with legislators to request a Government Accountability Office study on the impact workplace violence has on public services, healthcare, preK-12 and higher education; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT will petition the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to study the impact of and potential solutions for workplace violence in public services, preK-12 and higher education; and 

RESOLVED, that the AFT will petition NIOSH and other relevant federal agencies to review, study and expand Type II workplace violence classifications within educational settings to explicitly recognize threats, intimidation, harassment, assault and violence committed by parents, guardians, caregivers, family members, volunteers, visitors, contractors, advocates and other non-student adults against educators, school staff and higher education personnel; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT will work to strengthen, reconstitute and empower the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and related federal and state agencies to ensure our members can safely enter and exit their workplaces knowing their health is a priority; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT will conduct awareness-building, leadership development, and skill-building trainings to support locals in launching workplace violence prevention campaigns rooted in worker testimony and collective action; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT will advise and assist locals in petitioning NIOSH for health hazard evaluations, including free, expert risk assessments and concrete recommendations for hazard mitigation; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT will continue and expand workplace violence prevention efforts for AFT nurses and healthcare professionals, teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel, higher education members, public library workers and public employees, including support for new and stronger state laws, training and resources for members and leaders, and sustained advocacy for the Workplace Violence Prevention for Healthcare and Social Services Workers Act and a strong OSHA (or state equivalent for public sector employees) standard.

Adopted July 19, 2026