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Showing posts with label enforcement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label enforcement. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

NJ Enforces Laws Against Worker Exploitation

In the four years since Governor Murphy expanded the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development's (NJDOL) powers in 2019 to halt work on job sites when there is strong evidence of worker exploitation, over 110 stop-work orders have been issued and more than $2.7 million in back wages owed to affected workers, liquidated damages, and penalties have been assessed. 

Friday, October 14, 2022

NJ Issues Stop-Work Orders for Lack of Workers’ Compensation Insurance

Enforce continues at a rapid pace in New Jersey for failure to comply with the state’s labor laws. The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (NJDOL) issued stop-work orders to contractor HESP Solar L.L.C. of Montvale and subcontractor Patriot Iron Works of Gaithersburg, Maryland, who were working on a project at Belleville High School.

Thursday, July 11, 2019

NJ Enters Into a Tri-State Agreement to Protect Workers

Labor departments from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware signed a reciprocal agreement on Tuesday designed to better protect workers and employers through a newly established pipeline of information sharing and coordination of enforcement efforts.

This agreement grants new powers to each state, including strategic data-sharing, interstate case referrals, and joint investigations that will greatly impact wage claim investigations, worker misclassification, workplace safety efforts, and other labor-related compliance matters.

Thursday, May 9, 2019

New Opioid Prescription Regulations

Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal and the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, together with the New Jersey Coordinator for Addiction Responses and Enforcement Strategies ("NJ CARES"), today announced a series of regulatory actions that will advance the State’s battle to end the opioid epidemic, including proposed rules that will expand access to the prevention and treatment of opioid use disorder through telemedicine.

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

New Penalties Proposed for Employers

Employers who fail to maintain or file reports of accidents, wages, benefits to taxes will be subject having their license suspended or revoked under a proposed rule. The proposed rule published by The Department of Labor and Workforce Development (NJDOL) will empower NJ to strictly enforce compliance including compliance with the workers compensation law, NJSA 34:15-1, et seq.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Undocumented Aliens Ensnared By Workers' Compensation



Peter Rousmaniere comments today about the problems, threats and fears that undocumented aliens confront with the nation's patchwork of compensation programs. Injured undocumented aliens in states than mandate the submission of a social security number to file an initial application for workers' compensation benefits are particular targets for criminal fraud enforcement.

"The eight million undocumented workers comprise about 6% of the total civilian workforce. By studying estimates of undocumented worker penetration by occupations ranked by injury risk, one can reasonably project that undocumented workers sustain one out of every ten work injuries. This high volume is invisible to almost everyone except for adjusters, case managers, lawyers and others who work directly with injured workers and have learned their work and life patterns. The rate varies greatly, from maybe 2% in West Virginia, a low foreign-born population state, to over half within the fruit and vegetable producing counties of southern California."

Reconciliation of this issue remains uncertain for a multitude of reasons. The future of immediate national reform of immigration laws this election cycle now looks bleak with Eric Cantor's recent primary defeat. States will continue to use Social Security information for tax collection and enforcement, in addition to the reconciliation of other programs such as Medicare and unemployment benefits. 

Ironically as Rousmaniere points out in his commentary, the power of the employer over the employee, is a huge challenge to the improvement of safety and health in the workplace. Shifting the burden from employers to US taxpayers is problematic. As the Affordable Care Act is fined tuned in the years ahead, the issue of undocumented aliens will become both a more dominate moral and legal issue in need of reform.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Citing armed protesters, BLM returns seized cattle to Nevada rancher

Today's post about "worker safety" is shared from the LA Times.
After spending a week whisking away nearly 400 cattle they said were illegally grazing on federal land in the Nevada desert, officials facing a battalion of protesters with horses and guns decided to free those cattle in a stunning reversal Saturday afternoon.
A line of cattle calmly filtered out of a federal holding area at about 3 p.m. as protesters and law enforcement watched from alongside Interstate 15 near the Nevada-Arizona state line.
"Due to escalating tensions, the cattle have been released from the enclosures in order to avoid violence and help restore order," the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said in a short statement.
Federal officials have failed for 21 years to compel rancher Cliven Bundy to pay the fee required to let privately owned cattle use public land.
The government has said the cattle roundup was a “last resort” to enforce court orders ruling that Bundy had failed to pay more than $1 million in fees since 1993. Forcing him either to pay or to give up his cattle is a matter of fairness to the 16,000 ranchers who do follow the rules, U.S. officials said.
Two weeks ago, the BLM and the National Park Service began mobilizing helicopters, trucks, cowboys and rangers to seize Bundy’s 900 cattle. 
The agencies moved nearly 400 to the holding area before suddenly announcing Saturday morning that the operation would end because of "grave concerns" about worker safety.
Bundy received nationwide support from people frustrated by...
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Saturday, April 12, 2014

Dreams dashed in fatal college tour bus crash

Today's post was shared by Trucker Lawyers and comes from bigstory.ap.org and highlights the need for more regulation and enforcement of transportation safety. If products are continued to be manufactured, operated, and maintained in an unsafe manner tragedies in the workplace will continue. Accidents just don't happen and hopefully can be avoided. 

  • APTOPIX California Bus Crash
     
  • APTOPIX California Bus Crash
     

    Rescuers tend to walking wounded after a fiery crash involving several vehicles, Thursday, April 10, 2014, just north of Orland, Calif., that left at least nine dead. Authorities said it is not yet clear what caused the crash but that it involved a tour bus, a FedEx truck and a Nissan Altima. (AP Photo/The Chico Enterprise-Record, Dan Reidel)
  • CA_BUS_CRASH
     

    Map locates Orland, Calif., where three vehicles crashed and killed at least nine; 6c x 2 inches; 295.2 mm x 50 mm;
  • California Bus Crash
     

    Massive flames are seen devouring both vehicles just after the crash, and clouds of smoke billowed into the sky Thursday April 10, 2014 until firefighters had quenched the fire, leaving behind scorched black hulks of metal. The FedEx tractor-trailer crossed a grassy freeway median in Northern California and slammed into the bus carrying high school students on a visit to a college. At least nine were killed in the fiery crash, authorities said. (AP Photo/Jeremy Lockett)
  • California Bus Crash
     

    Emergency crews look over wreckage from a crash between a semi and a tour bus on Thursday, April 10, 2014, on Interstate 5 near Orland, Calif. Authorities said it is not yet clear what caused the crash but that it involved a tour bus, a FedEx truck and a Nissan Altima. At least Nine people were killed Thursday and dozens injured in the fiery crash between a FedEx delivery truck and a charter bus carrying high school students on a visit to a Northern California college, authorities said. (AP...
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Related articles:
Apr 08, 2014
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has ordered Scapadas Magicas LLC, a passenger carrier operating in the United States, to immediately cease ...
Jul 22, 2013
New technology in the coming years maybe become critical evidence in determining the casual relationship of transportation accidents as well as whether the employee deviated from the employment at the time of the event.
Sep 27, 2012
Workplace injuries involving transportation continue to be major contributing factors to fatalities in the United States. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported preliminary data for 2011 reflecting that transportation ...
Apr 06, 2014
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has ordered DND International, Inc., USDOT No. 1434005, to immediately shut down after declaring the ...

Sunday, August 11, 2013

N.Y. AG announces $600,000 agreement with masonry contractor

Employer fraud continues to be a major problem. NY State has enforced workers' compensation laws actively. Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com
Schneiderman
Eric Schneiderman

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Thursday an agreement with a masonry contractor and its owners for allegedly underpaying masonry workers on a publicly funded senior housing facility project.

Masonry Services Inc. and its owners, James Herrera and Jaime Herrera, allegedly paid masonry workers between $8 and $23 an hour for work on the St. Marks Project, far below the applicable prevailing wage rates.
MSI also allegedly failed to pay overtime to workers despite the workers regularly working more than 40 hours per week.

“My office will continue to pursue contractors who illegally underpay workers, whether it’s on a small scale or in a larger settlement like this one,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “Contractors who work on publicly-funded affordable housing projects must comply with all applicable laws, plain and simple. MSI will be held accountable for failing to meet its obligations to hard-working New Yorkers, in addition to paying back the wages owed to its workers.”

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Occupational Illnesses Continue to Unnecessarily Kill Workers

A recent Letter to the Editor in the New York Times focuses on the fact that US workers continue to suffer from fatal occupational diseases and illness that are avoidable. 

Commenting on the feature article exposing the need to great enforcement of safety measures by OSHA, Tom O'Connor, Executive Director, National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, stated: "While nearly 5,000 workers die on the job each year, an estimated 50,000 more develop an occupational illness. Yet despite this toll, the federal government sits on rules that could help prevent workers from developing occupational illnesses. A proposed rule that would prevent workers from being exposed to dangerous levels of silica dust on the job has remained mired at the Office of Management and Budget for more than two years."

Click here to read the entire letter: LETTER Rules on Worker HealthTom O'Connor Should Your Job Kill You?

Read more about "occupational illness" and workers' compensation:
Mar 18, 2011
Fire fighters in Canada are supporting legislation that would establish a legal presumption that breast cancer is an occupationally related illness. The legislation also creates a presumption that 3 other cancers (skin, prostate ...
Mar 31, 2013
A just published study reports that only 25% of occupational disease claims are covered by US workers' compensation programs. Click here to read the entire report: Economic Burden of Occupational Injury and Illness in the .
Mar 05, 2010
Alice in Wonderland has been released in the movie theaters today. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has been quick to remind us of the Mad Hatter and mercury exposures. "Society has made ...
Mar 17, 2011
In a series of articles, Celeste Monforton discusses the absence in the U.S. of a comprehensive system for surveillance of occupational illnesses sand disease. Citing the the U.S. Surgeon General in 1965 that..."it is almost ...

Sunday, March 31, 2013

OSHA Needs To Be Strengthened

If workplaces were safer then there would be no reason to have a workers' compensation program at all. OSHA, The Occupational Safety and Head Health Administration (OSHA), does just that, but its enforcement powers are lacking.

OSHA was created legislatively by Congress in 1970. In the years following  The National
Commission on Workmen's Compensation Laws in 1972 reported that safety should be encouraged, and that, "....Economic incentives in the program should reduce the number of work-related· injuries

and diseases." 

Today, The New York Times reports that "Occupational illness and injuries ....cost the American economy $250 Billion per year due to medical expenses and lost productivity."

English: A picture of David Michaels, Assistan...
English: A picture of David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
"OSHA devotes most of its budget and attention to responding to here-and-now dangers rather than preventing the silent, slow killers that, in the end, take far more lives. Over the past four decades, the agency has written new standards with exposure limits for 16 of the most deadly workplace hazards, including lead, asbestos and arsenic. But for the tens of thousands of other dangerous substances American workers handle each day, employers are largely left to decide what exposure level is safe.

***

“"I’m the first to admit this [OSHA] is broken,' said David Michaels, the OSHA director, referring to the agency’s record on dealing with workplace health threats. 'Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people end up on the gurney.'"


Click here to read the complete article,  As OSHA Emphasizes Safety, Long-Term Health Risks Fester