Gender, violence, Batty, Hulls and business preparedness

Recently the Victorian Women Lawyers conducted a seminar into the outcomes of Victoria’s Royal Commission into Family Violence.  SafetyAtWorkBlog attended even though the topic seems, initially, to have a tenuous link to occupational health and safety (OHS).  Family violence is relevant to OHS through its influence on workplace mental ill-health, productivity and the need for cultural change.

The guest speakers included Rob Hulls, Rosie Batty, and Antoinette Braybrook (pictured).

Progress needs Trust

Batty stated early in the seminar that we are a “victim-blaming society”where victims do not know who they can trust and therefore hesitate to raise issues of abuse or injustice.  The importance of trust in establishing a functional workplace culture has been discussed elsewhere.  Raising issues with managers or authorities is a crucial element of OHS law based on the assumption that the issues will be taken seriously and be controlled to some degree; an assumption that varies with each workplace.

Batty also said that

“unless we see perpetrators being held accountable, why would you want to come forward and expose yourself, be vulnerable and unsafe?”

Accountability is a crucial element of establishing and maintaining a suitable workplace safety culture as reinforces fairness and justice.

Justice

Rob Hulls, a former Minister for Workcover and now the Director of RMIT University’s Centre for Innovative Justice, addressed the issue of perpetrator accountability (readers may want to listen to a podcast on this issue) with echoes to the OHS principle of implementing higher orders of control with the intention of eliminating the hazard.  Violence prevention does not fit the OHS hierarchy of controls but the moral basis is the same – to eliminate harm.

Hulls also promoted the importance of a holistic approach in the criminal justice system with many of his comments sounding similar to those advocating that workplace safety be managed and approached “differently”.  In each situation, people are calling for a rethink of the way we deal with people because, primarily, the old ways are behind society’s current expectations.

Given his role at RMIT, it should be no surprise that Hulls mentioned restorative justice, a mechanism that is underutilised in workplaces but continues to have great potential.  Hulls repeatedly mentioned “therapeutic restorative justice” as if restorative justice needs an additional context to clarify its intention.  He went on to explain that the retribution sought through the current justice system is an indication of its outdated structure.

Rob Hulls made one statement about a shocking reporting of crime statistic that highlighted a ratio that may be worth investigating in the workplace:

“[in relation to sexual violence] did you know that only one in one hundred victims of sexual assault end up reporting to police, being believed, going through committal, going through trial, and resulting in a conviction against the perpetrator?”

This critique of the structure of the justice system shows how the system deters victims reporting incidents due to its complexity and provides opportunity and benefits for the perpetrator to avoid punishment.  Many company OHS Issue Resolution policies and processes may have a similar deterrence on the reporting of workplace incidents and may be due for review as such processes contribute to natural justice, accountability and the reinforcement of trust in a suitable and productive workplace culture.

Gender and Work

There was less discussion about gender as expected, primarily, because as Batty said at the start of the seminar, family violence is a genderised issue that overwhelmingly victimises more women and children than men.  The figures are undeniable but who is responsible for the social change required is more difficult to discern.

Rosie Batty said that the violence will not stop until men choose to stop.  This is true but needs to acknowledge that this will take a long term, even generational, change.  Any change based on a single strategy will be a long one but few issues have single causes or single controls as workplace investigations have shown.

Michael Flood of the University of Wollongong recently wrote that

“Violence prevention efforts often have focused on changing men’s attitudes, rather than also seeking to transform structural and institutional inequalities.”

Flood focuses on the criminal justice system but acknowledges sporting groups and workplaces.  More attention to family violence is required at workplace level.  The violence may not occur at work but the ramifications of it does, and not only in presenteeism and poor productivity.  If the worker is in a safety critical position, for instance, the risks to others are increased.

Business owners are often aware of the socio-economic context of their business – who buys products, the cost of labour, regulations, the cost of transport etc – but needs to be just as aware of the socio-economic context of its workforce.  Family violence may never encroach on one’s workforce but it must be acknowledged as a potentiality as it be one of the factors contributing to other OHS issues.  This is a major reason why incident investigations need to be more than a simple cause-and-effect review that shows the worker did the wrong thing.

Such investigations also provide a better understanding of the type of culture a workplace has.  The investigations themselves and how the findings are addressed also contribute to the culture and the effective governance of the business.

Family violence rarely manifests at work but the pain, distraction and mental stress does and businesses need to have appropriate measures in place for what could be an uncomfortable, but necessary, conversation.  It needs to have the resources or networks to back up whatever action is required for the worker’s benefit.

All of the discussion about the social context of family violence should not forget the economic realities that both perpetrators and victims are likely to continue to work during any journey through the justice system and that work relations may become fragile as a result.  These relationships will have OHS impacts and will test OHS and human resource processes and resources. OHS professionals and business owners need to be ready.

Kevin Jones

*Michael Flood (2015) Work with men to end violence against women: a critical stocktake, Culture, Health & Sexuality, 17:sup2, 159-176,