ACLW supports the Submission to Fair Work Act from Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse
According to the ABS, over sixty percent of victims of domestic violence are in paid work and violence has a damaging, yet often hidden, impact on victims’ working lives.
The 2011 Safe at Home, Safe at Work? National Domestic Violence and the Workplace Survey, conducted by Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse found that thirty percent of 3,611 respondent workers had experienced some form of domestic violence over the course of their lifetime.
Of the respondents who had experienced domestic violence, nearly half reported that it had affected their capacity to get to work.
Nineteen percent of respondents who had experienced domestic violence reported that the violence had impacted on them in the workplace: abusive calls and emails and the abusive person attending the workplace were the most common form of abuse experienced.
In many instances, the abusive person targets the victim at work or their capacity to get to work in order to force them to resign or abandon their job, or get them fired or disciplined.
Women who are victims of domestic violence have more disrupted work histories, on average have lower personal incomes, have had to change jobs frequently and are more likely to be employed in casual and part time work than women with no experience of violence. Here are the Key Findings of the Survey.
The Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse is presenting a submissions to include domestic violence in the Fair Work Act and as a ground of discrimination
For more information see: Submission to Fair Work Act from Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse
Petition
To show your support consider signing the petition which asks the Prime Minister The Hon. Julia Gillard MP to ensure that workers in Australia who experience domestic violence be protected in the workplace by:
1. Amending the Fair Work Act to include domestic and family violence protecions as a National Employment Standard
2. Ensuring that a consolidated Commonwealth equality law prohibit discrimination on the ground of domestic and family violence.
Sign the petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-hon-julia-gillard-mp-protect-workers-in-australia-who-experience-domestic-violence