Beyond Zero Tolerance: Progressive Accountability for Workplace Domestic Violence

Registration is now open: Thursday, November 26, 2026 | 12:00 to 1:30 PM ET | Free

An employee is missing shifts. There have been near misses on the floor. A co-worker has complained about his temper. The file looks like straightforward progressive discipline, until you learn he is also using violence against his partner at home.

Many workplace violence policies quote the employer’s duty to protect a worker being subjected to IPV. Very few say anything about what to do when the person causing the harm is on the payroll. The default response is zero tolerance and termination.

But termination can make things worse. It removes the employee’s income, which increases economic hardship for the survivor. It can also increase the danger to her at home. In 2020, Ontario’s Domestic Violence Death Review Committee identified this problem and recommended an alternative: progressive accountability. The Committee directed recommendations to the Ministry of Labour and to the HRPA. Six years later, there is still no established guidance on how an employer would put such a framework in place.

This panel takes up that gap.

What we’ll cover

I’m joined by three people who bring the perspectives this problem requires.

Richard Charney is a Chambers Band 1-ranked senior labour lawyer at Dentons, with decades of experience in collective bargaining, discipline, and arbitration.

Tim Kelly and Carolyn Cofell are senior clinical social workers who specialize in intervention with men who use harm in their relationships. This is a small and specialized field, and it is different from general counselling or anger management.

Together we’ll work through:

1. Why anger management can backfire, and what effective intervention actually involves.
2. The grievances an employer could unintentionally open itself up to, and how to avoid them.
3. The terms bargaining parties would ideally agree on in a letter of understanding to make this work.

Who should attend

HR and labour relations professionals, union representatives, in-house counsel, and labour and employment lawyers.

Accreditation

Approved for 1.5 HRPA CPD hours and 30 minutes of LSO EDI Professionalism hours.

Registration

Free. If you’re open to it, I’d suggest a $20 donation to Changing Ways, which specializes in the type of intervention we’ll be discussing.

Thank you to the Learning Network and Knowledge Hub and to CREVAWC for supporting this webinar with their platform and tech support.

We will never end intimate partner violence if we keep ignoring the people causing the harm. Let’s get the conversation started on what employers and unions can do about it.

Register here.

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