Employers need policies in place to address domestic violence and stalking, says ABA House
The ABA House of Delegates has adopted the Model Workplace Policy on Employer Responses to Domestic Violence, Dating Violence and Stalking in Resolution 112A.
The policy encourages all employers to enact formal policies on workplace responses to the problems of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual violence, and stalking violence. Those policies should address prevention and remedies; provide assistance to employees who experience such violence; and hold accountable employees who perpetrate violence.
The report (PDF) made to the House of Delegates about Resolution 112A cites statistics showing that these are issues of grave concern to businesses. A U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics study in 2006 showed that nearly one in four companies which employ 1,000 or more employees reported that they had at least one on-site incident of domestic violence in the previous year. In addition to a survey of companies nationwide in which 94 percent of corporate security and safety directors ranked domestic violence as a high security concern, “55 percent of senior executives believe domestic violence hurts their businesses’ productivity, 61 percent indicated that their insurance and health care costs increased due to domestic violence, 70 percent found their worker attendance affected by domestic violence, and 55 percent found domestic violence to be a cause of employee turnover.”
