Workplace Respect Project Update: January – June 2022

Workplace Respect Project Update: January – June 2022

Circle Green is the lead agency for the Workplace Respect Project which is a Commonwealth Government-funded response to the Respect@Work Report.

The Workplace Respect Project seeks to achieve the following outcomes:

• Prevalence and nature of workplace sexual harassment and discrimination in Western Australia is identified, understood, and monitored.
• Legal advice and support services are integrated, responsive, and delivered for people experiencing workplace sexual harassment and discrimination.
• Increased community, workplace, legal profession, and individual knowledge of, and skills to respond to workplace sexual harassment and discrimination enabling safe and meaningful workplaces.
• Sex discrimination and workplace legislation that protects workers and fosters safe workplaces.

We have been busy this period with a lot of foundational activities to set the project up for success.

We’ve also been busy engaging with stakeholders. For example, we:

• collaborated with Aboriginal Legal Service (WA) to plan a First Nations Engagement Officers secondee model;
• engaged with Aboriginal Family Legal Service to discuss legal need and opportunities for collaboration;
• engaged with Curtin University to discuss opportunities to collaborate regarding workplace psychosocial hazards; and
• engaged with Champions for Change; Fullstop; Centre for Women’s Safety and Wellbeing; and Women’s Legal Services WA as potential partners and project stakeholders.

Our most exciting news, however, is that we are currently recruiting for members for our Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP). The LEAP we be a crucial mechanism for informing the Workplace Respect Project.

We are excited to announce that we have appointed the Centre for Social Impact (University of Western Australia) to partner with us and the legal assistance sector more broadly (as well as other stakeholders) to undertake research to help identify legal need priorities in relation to workplace sexual harassment and discrimination in Western Australia.

We have been busy reviewing our intake processes to minimise any perceived barriers to victims of workplace sexual harassment accessing our services. In the implementation of any necessary revisions, we will be working with our Lived Experience Advisory Panel to ensure responsiveness and will communicate any new processes to the sector.

Watch this space for our new Workplace Respect Project webpage – coming soon!

This period we saw a total of 23 clients with workplace sexual harassment issues.

87% of these clients identified as female:

The majority of clients were between the ages of 25 and 49. 61% of clients were under the age of 35.

Clients came from a range of overlapping priority groups:

The majority of clients came from a major city:

The majority of legal services provided to these clients were legal advice:

The most common employer type for each service provided was a company:

In addition to sexual harassment, a range of co-occurring workplace legal issues were also identified and supported. The top 10 co-occurring issues were:

This period has included planning, preparing and delivering community legal education resources and sessions that help build capacity around understanding and responding to workplace sexual harassment and discrimination.

Some of our activities included:

• developing new CLE / capacity building training resource on sexual harassment, sex discrimination and gendered violence workplace impacts;
• delivering a CLE / capacity building half-day training session to a community legal centre on sexual harassment, sex discrimination and gendered violence workplace impacts;
• substantively updating our CLE resource / presentation on Conciliation Information Sessions in the WA Industrial Relations Commission to cover new workplace sexual harassment and bullying claims available from commencement of state industrial relations reforms;
• conducting a workshop with our Workplace Team to identify partnership opportunities and preliminary CLE resource requirements;
• getting news coverage after an ABC radio interview on state industrial relations system reforms regarding workplace sexual harassment and bullying;
• delivering a 3-hour interactive Rights at Work in WA workshop for migrant women entering/ re-entering the food and hospitality industry in partnership with Metropolitan Migrant Resource Centre OSFIT Program, which included content on workplace sexual harassment and discrimination protections and rights;
• engaging with Legal Aid WA to share ideas and resources for CLE development; and
• engaging with the Working Women’s Centre South Australia regarding their CLE and Training model.

In efforts to respond to an expected greater number of people in need of legal assistance for workplace sexual harassment and discrimination matters, we’ve partnered with Law Access to develop a referral pipeline and pro-bono model for the project.

Leveraging our existing relationships, we’ve also engaged directly with various law firms regarding pro bono partnership opportunities for the Project.

Preliminary work in this area has included engaging with Law Access to discuss potential training for pro-bono lawyers and engaging Curtin university to undertake a lit review to inform the development of our Bystander Intervention training.

We also have plans to survey CLCs and other NGOs to assess training needs and interest in partnering on CLE and other initiatives.

Can’t wait to collaborate? Reach out to us on workplace@circlegreen.org.au.

Work in this area has included:

• Respect@Work Report: Roundtable meeting with the Attorney-General’s department.
• Respect@Work Report: Submission to public consultation on option to progress six recommendations:

1. 1. 1. providing that creating or facilitating an intimidating, hostile, humiliating or offensive environment on the basis of sex is expressly prohibited (recommendation 16(c));
      2. introducing a positive duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment from occurring and provide the Australian Human Rights Commission with the function of assessing compliance with the positive duty, and equipping the Commission appropriately to enforce that duty (recommendations 17 and 18);
      3. providing the Australian Human Rights Commission with a broad inquiry function to inquire into systemic unlawful discrimination, including sexual harassment (recommendation 19);
      4. allowing unions and other representative groups to bring representative claims to court (recommendation 23); and
      5. inserting a cost provision into Australian Human Rights Commission Act to provide that a party to proceedings may only be ordered to pay the other party’s costs in limited circumstances (recommendation 25).

We have officially partnered with the Centre for Social Impact at UWA to conduct our evaluation over the duration of the Project.