The Victorian government has called for at least 10 days of paid family violence leave to be offered to all workers, telling the Fair Work Commission a program for the state’s public servants saw about 64 people access the leave in the past year alone.
The FWC is reviewing whether employees should be entitled to paid family violence leave under modern awards. Currently, all workers, including those who are casual and part-time, are entitled to five days of unpaid leave.
Paid family violence leave has been included in all new Victorian public sector enterprise agreements, following the state’s royal commission into the issue in 2015.
In its submission to the FWC review, the Victorian government said about 320,000 public sector employees across nine departments and 280 public sector agencies have access to 20 days of paid leave each year.
The leave enables employees – without exhausting other forms of leave – to take time away from work to attend to urgent matters, seek safe housing, attend medical appointments, court hearings and police stations, or organise alternative care and school arrangements for their children.
Across the Department of Health, the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing and the Department of Justice and Community and Safety – which have about 21,400 staff all together – an average of 0.3% of employees accessed paid family violence leave in the past year, the government said in the submission. This amounts to about 64.2 people.
On average, each worker used up 8.56 days of their 20-day entitlement.
Where paid family violence leave is exhausted, further leave has been provided on a case-by-case basis.
Kate Seymour, a senior lecturer of social work at Flinders University, was part of a team that completed an analysis of Australia’s workplace agreement database for the FWC. They found a third of enterprise agreements approved by the commission included paid family violence leave for employees, the majority of which provide for 10 days of paid leave.
She said the take-up of such leave has been small, as evidenced by Victoria’s submission, with the benefits “far outweighing” the associated costs to businesses.
“If we can maintain women’s employment then that will have flow-on impacts in terms of not only their own economic productivity but also their ability to support themselves and their families,” Seymour said.
She said the majority of women who have experienced family violence are employed but are likely to have disrupted work histories, having been forced to take time off, take on caring responsibilities or move cities or jobs. This can affect their superannuation balance, ability to borrow money or secure a rental property.
“It’s hard to quantify or even to see but it has profound impact over the long-term career of women and also in terms of gender equality overall,” Seymour said.
While casual workers weren’t entitled to paid family violence leave, the government said it has recently announced a two-year trial of five days of paid sick-leave for casual workers in eligible occupations.
The industrial relations minister, Tim Pallas, said economic security could provide a crucial pathway out of violent relationships.
He said at least 10 days of paid family violence leave should be introduced in all modern awards, accompanied by an education campaign that promotes the benefits of paid leave to both the workplace and the affected employees.
“Paid family violence leave provides practical, immediate support to help victims of family violence,” Pallas said.
“It’s been an integral support for women in public sector roles in Victoria since 2015 and common sense and decency says that it should be extended to all workers.”
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
