Your posting is very incomplete. What is the current custody situation? You seem to say you have 8 hours of visitation per week. If you don't even have the standard minimum every other weekend visitation I presume that you have been dinged for family violence, hence the batterers class.

With the limited info you have given, I doubt seriously that you will get joint custody at this point. You have not complied with the court orders and you don't have a job. The judge is unlikely to accept your excuses.

Excuses are just that excuses. If you are working then your employer HAS to allow you the time to go to these classes. If they do not then they are interfering with the courts. Courts hate that. If you really do want time with your child FIND a way to make it to the classes. It's easy to excuse it to "I don't have time" but when it comes to our children we make time, that is how they know we love them.