I work for one of the best employers in the state, even in the country, one that has won awards for the work environment and benefits it provides for workers. I know I’m very lucky because I’ve also worked in some very bad situations. I took a huge cut in pay when I voluntarily left my former employer. But I had reached a breaking point, and it was worth it to me. That was seven years ago, and I have never looked back.

But not all workers have that option. With a worsening economy and losses in our retirements savings, more are feeling the pressures to remain in situations that are damaging to their mental and sometimes physical health.

For more than two decades, American workers have been pushed to produce more and more, to work longer hours, to take less time off, and to be loyal to the company, all while seeing reductions in pay and benefits. While our European counterparts take a month of vacation—sometimes more, many Americans are not only entitled to fewer days, but are encouraged not to use available time off.

The squeeze has had been taking a toll, and there is probably not enough recognition of how bad it is.

Someone close to me works at Hill AFB, and she suffers from a painful debilitating disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis. When the disease is controlled, she is able to perform her regular duties in aircraft maintenance. But when the disease flares, she suffers severe pain and requires medication and rest from physical labor. Yet her supervisors at Hill pressure her to come to work and not use sick leave that is available to her. She fears being downgraded or losing her job altogether and financial security it provides, and she pushes herself too hard trying to satisfy the demands on her. I have heard her talk many times of the depression she feels because of her job, but I did not realize how widespread the problem was at Hill.

News reports tell us about a tragedy that has been playing out at at HAFB. The suicide rate among HAFB workers is double that of other Utahns, which is also one of the highest in the country. Why? Some blame pressures of the workplace.

Thousands of workers at Hill Air Force Base were ordered to attend suicide prevention meetings last week as base leaders responded to two more deaths, thought to be self-inflicted, by civilian employees at the base.
[snip]Some Hill workers and the families of some of those who have killed themselves have suggested that a hostile work climate has contributed to the deaths.

And:

The base’s figures also don’t include people like [name omitted here], who killed himself in 2006 just days after being fired from Hill — in what Wright considers a wrongful termination over a relatively minor violation of workplace rules involving taking undeserved sick time. [snip]

Former Hill union steward James Lorredo helped [name omitted]file grievances before [name omitted]was dismissed. Lorredo said [name omitted]isn’t the only person who has taken his own life after standing up to base managers and facing a backlash.

“If they’re saying that people killing themselves has nothing to do with work, I can tell you straight up that is not right,” Lorredo said.

Lorredo and others say the problems at Hill include verbally abusive managers, pressure not to take sick time to deal with injuries and a command culture that lionizes uniformed military members but often ignores the contributions of civilians. [snip]

No one is claiming that the climate at Hill is singularly to blame for the deaths.

But several current Hill employees who were colleagues of suicide victims said they were confident that work issues were paramount. Some said they had also had thoughts of taking their own lives — and in all of those cases, working conditions at the base were a key issue.

“I’d be lying if I said I haven’t considered it,” said one male worker, in his mid-50s. He insisted that his life is fulfilling in every way but one — work. And he may have touched on a key factor in the equation when he described feeling “handcuffed” to Hill.

“With the economy the way it is, you can’t just stand up and walk away,” he said. “Most of us get paid pretty good money up there. We have obligations like anyone else. So if you’re being treated poorly, you can’t just do the old ‘take this job and shove it’ thing.”

While the focus here is on production workers, I think an equally dangerous situation exists for middle managers. They are the ones who are getting pressure from higher up to produce more with fewer workers, what with expense-cutting measures and reductions in force. And managers don’t have the job protections offered by a union – they know how vulnerable they are. I think this produces supervisors who out of character become abusive and insensitive to their own workers out of a personal sense of survival.

Suicide is a delicate subject and I want to be sensitive about it here. I know it’s a complex issue and other factors certainly can make some workers more vulnerable than others. I have great sympathy for all those affected by such a tragedy. But we should also recognize it is not the only avenue of escape chosen by pressured workers who may engage in other self-destructive behavior leading to alcoholism, drug abuse, and other life-damaging conditions.

At my work, we have a quality improvement program that is methodically used to address business-related problems. The goal of the program is not to blame people, but to discover the problem in our procedures that makes it easy for errors to occur, and then to come up with solutions that minimize the possibilities for errors. The process recognizes that while there are certainly bad workers, most employees are doing their jobs to the best of their abilities, and failures do not always occur because of laziness, incompetence, or indifference. Processes can always be improved. Workers can be assured that we know they are human and can sometimes make mistakes but they do not need to fear for their job security when that sometimes happens.

Americans need a break. We need to stop feeling the pressures to produce more than is humanly possible. We need recognition for a job well done when it is deserved, and encouragement to do better. Hill AFB is learning this lesson the hard way. I hope it’s a lesson they do learn.