HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – Just two days after Pennsauken, N.J., family doctor Michelle Liggio was shot to death at her medical practice by her husband, Christopher, who then turned the gun on himself, local business and nonprofit leaders gathered in Huntsville to talk about domestic violence in the workplace.
The murder-suicide in New Jersey was apparently sparked by a dispute between the couple, who were going through a divorce, according to USAToday. The incident follows a recent local case in which a Tuscaloosa woman was bitten and beaten with a wrench at her workplace by her ex-girlfriend in late May, AL.com reports.
Peace@Work founder Johnny Lee held the free seminar from 9 a.m. to noon Thursday at the Verizon Wireless Call Center near Bridge Street Town Centre. Lee, who said about one in five women will experience abuse at some point in their lives, said domestic violence in the workplace can cause major obstacles for victims and their employers.
"This is a business issue," he said. "You often think of it as more of a personal thing in that it happens in people's homes or personal lives. The fact is there is a risk to workplace safety and the impact on job performance, so undoubtedly, it is a workplace business issue."
Peace@Work estimates about 75 percent of females who are killed at work, excluding robbery, are murdered by an ex-partner, while six out of 10 domestic violence victims either quit or are fired from a job because of their abusive situation. Alabama ranked second nationwide in women being killed by men, according to a 2011 Violence Policy Center study.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the yearly cost of lost productivity due to domestic violence is about $727 million, with more than 7.9 million paid work days – the equivalent of more than 32,000 full-time jobs – lost each year.
Lee said domestic violence impacts businesses through rising healthcare costs, poor job performance, workplace interruptions and threats of violence. Ninety-eight percent of abuse victims struggle to concentrate, 80 percent are late to work and 13 percent are assaulted on the job, Lee said.
"Thousands of women are being killed every year due to this," said Lee, who noted men are also victims of domestic violence, but not at the same rate as women. "Our real mission is for employers to not only have the opportunity to stop this, but to realize that financially, it is also in their best interest."
The seminar also included discussion on a sweeping Alabama gun bill signed into law by Gov. Robert Bentley last month that allows employees to bring their weapons to the workplace parking lot as long as the gun is stored out of sight in a locked vehicle.
The law forbids employers from enforcing policies that contradict the gun bill, but does not stop businesses from prohibiting the possession of a concealed weapon on company property.
Brian Selke, a north Alabama risk management director for a nonprofit organization he declined to name, was among a couple dozen seminar attendees Thursday. Selke, who spent more than 25 years in law enforcement, works to ensure safety measures are met at his workplace, but said he supported the new gun bill.
"Up until recently, we had a policy in our corporate employee handbook that no firearms were allowed in the building or the parking lots, but based on the current situation in the world, there's a need to reevaluate it," he said. "Now law supports that we can't block them from having it in the parking lot."
Selke, whose 248-member company is composed primary of women, attended the seminar because he was concerned about domestic violence issues affecting his workforce.
"You can 'what if' this gun bill back and forth every day, but my greater concern is what happens on the way to work and on the way home from work if we've denied them access of having a constitutionally-legal possession of a firearm that the constitution says they can have and Alabama law says they can have," he said.
Crisis Services of North Alabama development manager Bill Farris had a different opinion.
"If I held a picnic in my front yard and invited the neighbors, and one of the stipulations I made was, 'For safety issues, leave your gun at home,' I ought to be able to do that as a homeowner," he said. "As a business owner, I ought to be able to do the same thing to ensure the safety of the people shopping at my store or working at my company. Whatever it is, I ought to have the right to say, 'I don't want you to bring guns onto the premises.' It's just that simple."
In November 2001, Amy Homan McGee, a Verizon Wireless employee, was fatally shot by her husband at their home in Pennsylvania, ending a lengthy history of abuse for the mother of two children.
Since McGee's death, Verizon has taken a steps to help its employees by offering on-site counseling, changing work schedules, removing employees' names from the staff directory and, in some cases, relocating workers to escape the abuse.
Verizon, which presented a $1,000 check to the Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence on Thursday, has given more than $3.7 million in cash grants to domestic prevention and awareness programs in the U.S. Verizon's HopeLine program has also collected more than one million phones for domestic violence victims.
Marcia Belford, associate director of the Verizon Wireless Call Center in Huntsville, said her organization helped relocate an employee who was being beaten by her abuser about two years ago. They've also taken in domestic violence victims from other Verizon locations in the U.S.
"We decided to really become a part of the community and group together with other businesses to fight and help people who are going through domestic violence," she said.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario