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Firms take steps to help abused workers
BY ELLEN SIMON The Associated Press

   NEW YORK — Gloria Holmes-Mason tried to get away from her abusive husband again and again.
   She was in the process of divorcing him, but he was still abusing her when she finally got the help she credits with saving her life — at work.
   “You don’t wake up wanting to get hit,” she said. “No one wants that.”
   Employers are stepping up their efforts to help workers in abusive relationships, doing everything from threat assessments to relocating those in danger.
   At Verizon Wireless, a mother worried about her daughter’s safety sent an email to executives; the company moved her to another part of the country, said spokeswoman Debra Lewis. Jerry Rossi, senior executive vice president, group president at TJX Cos., said the company has not only moved employees who were in danger, it’s worked with state and federal authorities to give them new identities.
   Some employers have started programs as part of a company effort, while others launched or intensified intervention efforts after a worker was murdered.
   Harman International, an audio and electronics company based in Washington, D.C., started its program in 2001 after 24-year employee Teresa Duran was fatally run over by her ex-husband in the parking lot of her apartment building.
   “It was brutal,” said Lynn Harman, corporate counsel at the company, who has done legal work with abused women.
   With help from the Family Violence Prevention Fund in San Francisco, a nonprofit group, the company developed a policy to help employees in violent relationships and rolled out companywide mandatory training. It emphasizes recognizing when employees are in danger and referring them to an expert who can help.
   Lynn Harman, who is the daughter of Sidney Harman, the company’s executive chairman, says she’s been thrilled with the results.
   One worker talked to a domestic violence counselor and decided to leave the state for her safety. Another realized her sister, who avoided socializing with the family, was likely being abused. With help, she got out of the relationship.
   “I cannot for the life of me understand why every corporation in America doesn’t do this,” Harman said. “It’s inexpensive. It’s simple. The sense of well-being employees have knowing their companies care enough to do this is not something you can buy. After every training, we get thank-you notes from employees.”
   Setting up the program cost $125,000. “Peanuts,” she said.
   Douglas Leach, coordinator for employer outreach programs at Blue Shield of California Foundation, an independent grant-making agency funded by Blue Shield of California, leads training sessions across the state and emphasizes how abuse can lead to poor work performance. Blue Shield of California reassessed its policies after one of its call center workers was murdered by her husband in 1996.
   Leach gives a composite example: The abuse victim has set the alarm for 6:30 a.m., but the abuser has set the clock back, ripped the work clothes, thrown out the packed lunch, siphoned gas from the car, hidden the car keys and put them back after the victim had looked for them for twenty minutes.
   Then the victim gets to work and is asked why he or she is late.
   Many victims of domestic violence feel economically trapped and are so isolated, work is their only social outlet.
   Employers need to know “if they can help victims keep their jobs, they might be saving a life right there,” said Leach.
   It can also protect the company. Victims have won claims and received damage awards when employers haven’t responded appropriately, said Robin Runge, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney who has represented victims.
   Eleven states allow companies to get protective orders, Runge said.
   Twenty-eight states have laws that extend unemployment insurance protection to people who leave their jobs because of domestic violence and eight states have laws that grant leaves to workers who must miss work for reasons relating to abuse. For a summary of state law, see http://legalmomentum. org/legalmomentum/files/employmentrightsguideaugust2007.pdf.
   Formal training has led to a skyrocketing increase in the number of calls to Liz Claiborne’s domestic violence task force, said Jane Randel, vice president of corporate communications. The company had no calls on the issue in 2002, but since starting formal training in 2003, it’s dealt with more than 100 cases.
   In one case, corporate security put a worker in a hotel room for a night when she had nowhere else to go. In another, when a retail worker didn’t show up for work, her supervisor alerted the company’s violence response team. Working with the authorities, they found she was being held hostage by her abuser. The woman credits the company with saving her life, Randel said.
   For Holmes-Mason, whose struggle to leave her husband included living in her car and times when she kept the house cold and dark to numb herself, the abuse hurt her job performance. Her husband would harass her at her job in lab processing and technology at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, Ill. She started coming to work late, calling in sick a lot.
   “My boss said, ‘I don’t want to write you up, you’ve been a good worker,’ ” Holmes-Mason said. “I didn’t want to talk about it. She started seeing some of the bruises on me.”
   Her boss encouraged her to go to a training session on domestic violence at the hospital. She met clinical nurse specialist Sarah Katula, whom she credits with saving her life. “She didn’t make me feel bad for what I was going through,” Holmes-Mason said. “She said, ‘If you feel the need to go back, you can go back, but I’m always there for you.’ I never went back.”
   That was four years ago.
   Katula also connected Holmes-Mason with a local shelter and helped her with practical matters, like writing an outline of what she needed to say in court.
   “You can get out,” Holmes-Mason said. “My life is so much better. I finally get the normal problems I always wanted, like how to pay the bills.”