Social Workers Fight Workplace Violence

Thrown to the floor, kicked in the head and beaten, Cathy Donatos, then a New Jersey social worker, has become a staunch advocate for safety in a dangerous profession.

Like Donatos, CWA Local 1037 members at New Jersey's Department of Youth and Family Services, and IUE-CWA Local 81381 social workers in Rochester, N.Y., risk being attacked on a daily basis and depend on their unions as a first line of defense.

Donatos required extensive surgery after developing acute pain and a serious infection of the facial bone. It took an appeal filed by CWA with the Merit System Review Board to get her paid for the weeks needed for recovery.

Social workers often have the difficult job of removing children from homes where they aren't getting proper care and supervision.

Donatos, now a union representative for Local 1037, said New Jersey social workers faced a string of attacks during the 1970s and '80s. One social worker was stalked, kidnapped by a client, stuffed in a car's trunk, driven around town and abandoned with the vehicle. A passerby heard her screams, saving her life. But "she was traumatized for years," Donatos said.

To win safer working conditions, Local 1037 members picketed their agency and stewards generated hundreds of e-mails to DYFS and state legislators.

"As a result of the union activity, workers got a buddy system, where they don't go to a dangerous area or situation without backup," Donatos said. Social workers now have cell phones and their state-owned cars — which sometimes were missing windows or had bad brakes — are more regularly inspected.    

IUE-CWA Local 81381 President John Vasko described similar risks to his 900 members at the Monroe County, N.Y., Department of Human Services. One was hit over the head with a brick while delivering a bus pass to a client's home. Others have been harassed, intimidated or attacked by vicious dogs.

Vasko submitted testimony and for the past four years worked with the state AFL-CIO in New York to win legislation to improve safety for his members. Now the state is holding hearings on how best to implement the Workplace Violence Prevention Law, signed into law last year. "It requires the employer to sit down with frontline workers and identify areas of concern and minimize the danger from violent acts," Vasko said.

Already, social workers in Monroe County are beginning to go out in pairs and sometimes now are given police escorts. Said Vasko, "With the new law, there's definitely more of a burden on the employer to ensure our members' safety."