Listen to the evening news and you're likely to hear a grizzly story about a disaffected worker or estranged spouse or dissatisfied customer arriving at a workplace and going ballistic. It's all too common.
About 17 employees are murdered every week in American workplaces by someone with a gun, making gun-related killings the third-biggest safety hazard facing American workers -- right after vehicles and machines. In fact, gun-related homicide is the leading cause of death at the workplace for women.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina have shown that killings are five times more likely to occur at workplaces where guns are allowed as where they're prohibited. It's just common sense.
So what are we doing about this? Some well-known American companies are taking action. It's government that's the problem.
A while back, the Weyerhauser Corporation banned weapons in cars parked in its employee parking lots. Workers who thereafter arrived with shotguns, handguns, rifles, and automatic weapons were fired.
But legislators in Oklahoma didn't like this at all. Apparently Oklahoma's lawmakers are more concerned about protecting gun owners than protecting average working people. So they enacted a state law preventing companies from instituting no-guns-in-company-parking-lot policies. Unless something's done, the law goes into effect this November.
Thankfully, something is being done. A group of companies is going to court to block that Oklahoma law. They say they have a right to take action to protect their employees on company property. These companies -- including the energy giant Halliburton; aircraft-part maker Nordam; and ConocoPhillips, the largest oil refiner in America -- deserve the thanks of workers in Oklahoma and in any other states where gun-fawning lawmakers are intent on endangering them.
True to form, the National Rifle Association is taking a stand against these companies, and in favor of people who want to bring guns to work. It's even organizing a boycott of ConocoPhillips gas stations.
Now, you may ask, where is the federal government in all this? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is supposed to set national policy for workplace safety. Since it was established more than 30 years ago, OSHA has often been corporate America's worst nightmare, focusing its enforcement on picayune rules and regulations.
Now here's OSHA's chance to side with corporate America and protect workers' lives. OSHA ought to ban guns in every workplace across America -- thereby preempting the Oklahoma legislation and sending the National Rifle Association packing.
If OSHA fails to take action on this one, you might suspect that the National Rifle Association has trained its sights on the Bush administration.
Robert B. Reich is cofounder of The American Prospect. A version of this column appeared on Marketplace.
