This is just companies' way of covering their backsides and trying to cover up a problem before it becomes public. It's a PR move (both internally and externally). Companies would much rather just fire the offending employee (the aggressor, not the complainant) and NOT have the police involved. Problem is, this now puts this disgruntled ex-employee on the street, police may or may not have a record of any of this, and this disgruntled employee now has a vendetta against the company and a bigger vendetta against the employee who ratted on him/her. The company has, in effect, just made this situation worse for the complaining employee, not better.seamusTX wrote:I looked at my employer's harassment policy. It states explicitly, several times, that any harassment, threats, or other ethical violations must be reported immediately to management or the hotline.
It also states that employees should not investigate violations on their own, and that failing to follow the policy is grounds for discipline of the employee who failed to report
Certainly you have the right to go to the police, but the company also has the right to enforce its policies (if they have any).
Every citizen has the right to file a police report for a legitimate complaint - and brandishing a weapon toward a fellow employee, short of a self-defense scenario, is a very legitimate complaint. Let me make this clear, if this is just some tiff between two employees, follow company policy. If this is any form of non-violent, though possibly creepy, harassment, follow company policy. But this employee, IMHO, was at least tangentally threatened by the offending employee's brandishing of a firearm. And even if this does not rise to the level of "assault", it is still a crime to brandish a weapon in this manner. This type of problem - an employee brandishing a gun toward another employee - is not merely a violation of some company policy or workplace rights (not belittling such problems), it is a CRIME with potentially deadly further consequences. Who knows if this nutjob's next crime will be walking down the hallways with 10 firearms firing 300 rounds of ammo at anyone unlucky enough to cross his path.
Obviously, the employee going straight to police and not to employer runs the risk of employer's wrath. But similar to what we all say about self-defense in general, better to be alive and unemployed than dead with relatives collecting your pension. This is obviously my own personal opinion/advice, YMMV, IANAL.
I see companies' policies regarding such incidents as just as bad for their employees as companies' policies toward banning law-abiding, licensed employees from having guns in the workplace/parking lot. These companies are taking an indvidual's legitimate right to self-defense away from the individual because doing so appears to be better for the company ("appears to be" because I say in both cases it is substantially worse for the company when the threatened employee is harmed).
Company policy does not usurp indivdual's rights.
