Workers' Compensation: Texas

Showing posts with label Texas. Show all posts

Friday, September 1, 2023

Water Breaks for Construction Workers

A Texas judge has blocked a new state law prohibiting local governments from requiring water breaks for construction workers. House Bill 2127 law was set to effect on Friday, September 1, 2023.

Opting Out Creates Savings Reports Stanford Study

Today's post is shared from ssrn.com

The “grand bargain” of workers’ compensation, whereby workers relinquished the right to sue their employers in exchange for no-fault occupational injury insurance, was one of the great tort reforms of the Twentieth Century. However, there is one U.S. state that has always permitted employers to decline workers’ compensation coverage, and in which many firms (“nonsubscribers”) have chosen to do so: Texas.

Are Uber Drivers Getting Their Tips?

Today's post is shared from http://ncworkcompjournal.com/

A U.S. federal judge recently ruled that a ride-sharing service must face a lawsuit alleging that the company has been pocketing tips meant for the drivers (Detroit Free Press, September 19, 2014). Uber Technologies is a smartphone-summoned car service based in San Francisco that has been charging a 20% surcharge on rides. Uber was founded in 2009 and is currently in 35 countries and more than 100 cities. It is valued at $18.2 billion and is the most valued ventured-back company in the world.

Filed in January, the class-action suit alleges that Uber has been keeping a “substantial portion” of the gratuity as additional revenue rather than sharing with its drivers. This lawsuit also accuses the company of misleading customers about the true cost of its service. The complaint characterizes Uber’s practice as unfair and deceptive because Uber keeps most of the surcharge and it’s not a gratuity.

Uber, Lyft and other car-booking companies have been facing a growing number of legal challenges. In Chicago, cab drivers sued the city claiming that these smartphone-summoned services are not subject to the same regulations governing conventional taxi companies. In Connecticut, Uber and Lyft have also been accused of racketeering by taxi and livery operators who accuse the companies of preying on established businesses and cutting legal corners by partnering with affiliated drivers instead of owning cars. That way, these companies claim they are different from taxi dispatchers and shouldn’t be forced to comply with existing regulations, such as driver background checks and liability insurance.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Rick Perry Orders Dallas Cowboys to Mexican Border

Immigration reform Texas Repuublican style. Today's post shared from newyorker.com
DALLAS (The Borowitz Report)—In his boldest move yet to address the immigration crisis, on Thursday Texas Governor Rick Perry dispatched the Dallas Cowboys to the United States’ border with Mexico.
In a photo opportunity with the Cowboys and several of the team’s cheerleaders, Perry explained the rationale behind his latest decision. “Those who would cross our borders illegally will have to contend with the power and fury of America’s Team,” he said.
Critics of the move dismissed it as political theatre, noting that once the Cowboys arrived at the border it was unclear what they would do there.
Additionally, there were questions about how effective the Cowboys would be in stopping illegal immigrants, since the team has the worst-ranked defense in the N.F.L.

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Wednesday, July 23, 2014

FDA warns of compounded drug recall by Texas firm

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration warned doctors Wednesday not to use compounded drugs from a Texas specialty pharmacy due to potential risks of contamination.
The agency says FDA inspectors recently uncovered unsanitary conditions at Unique Pharmaceuticals’ plant in Temple, Texas. The inspections revealed production problems in several drug lots that were supposed to be sterile.
“Using these products puts patients at an unacceptable risk for serious infection,” said Carol Bennett, an official in the FDA’s drug center.
At the behest of regulators, Unique Pharmaceuticals has recalled all non-expired, sterile products distributed across the U.S., including a fluid used to clear mucus in patients with respiratory conditions. The company has also halted production of all other sterile drugs, which are generally solutions administered via injection or intravenous infusion. A spokesman for the company said it continues to produce other forms of drugs that do not require sterile conditions.
“We are diligently working to address FDA’s concerns noted before the recall,” said David Shank, in a statement. “We have commissioned third-party independent experts to address those concerns and ensure the safety of our compounded preparations for our customers.” Shank added that the recall could contribute to shortages of medicines already in short supply.
The FDA said in a statement it is not aware of any illnesses linked...

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Sunday, June 29, 2014

Rick Perry, Texas and A Record of High Worker Fatalities and of Weak Benefits

Rick Perry presidential campaign, 2012 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Texas does not mandate workers' compensation coverage and injured workers. The difficulties with such a program are highlighted in a report shared from the NYTimes.com If Rick Perry runs for President in 2016 the system maybe promoted for national adoption.

Almost anywhere in the vast Lone Star State, one can find evidence of the “Texas miracle” economy that policy makers like Gov. Rick Perry have talked about in their political speeches.

The hot economy, they say, is the result of their zealous opposition to over-regulation, greedy trial lawyers and profligate government spending.

But state leaders have rarely mentioned the grim side of the workplace: Texas has led the nation in worker fatalities for seven of the last 10 years, and when Texans get hurt or killed on the job, they have some of the weakest protections and hardest-to-obtain benefits in the country.

Texas is the only state that does not require private employers to carry workers’ compensation insurance or a private equivalent, so more than 500,000 workers — about 6 percent of the work force — receive no occupational benefits if they are injured on the job. On-the-job injuries can leave them unable to work, and with little recourse.

More than a million Texans are covered by private occupational insurance from their employers. Those plans are not regulated by the state but are often written to sharply limit the benefits, legal rights and medical options of workers. Employers, however, say their workers often get quicker and better care under the private plans.

Most Texas workers, about 81 percent, are covered by a state-regulated compensation system, which provides injured workers with standard benefits, including partial...

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Thursday, January 16, 2014

NLRB Office of the General Counsel Issues Complaint against Walmart

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Office of the General Counsel has issued a consolidated complaint against Walmart alleging that the company violated the rights of its employees as a result of activities surrounding employee protests in 13 states.

The Office of the General Counsel informed Walmart that complaints were authorized in November of 2013, but withheld issuing the complaints to allow time for settlement discussions. The discussions have not been successful and a consolidated complaint has issued regarding some of the alleged violations of federal law. More than 60 Walmart supervisors and one corporate officer are named in the complaint.

Cases were consolidated to avoid unnecessary costs or delay. Walmart must respond to the complaint by January 28, 2014. No hearing date has been set. The Office of General Counsel has authorized or issued complaints in other Walmart cases and additional charges remain under investigation.

The National Labor Relations Act guarantees the right of private sector employees to act together to try to improve their wages and working conditions with or without a union. The consolidated complaint involves more than 60 employees, 19 of whom were discharged allegedly as a result of their participation in activities protected by the National Labor Relations Act. The Office of the General Counsel alleges that Walmart violated the Act when:

During two national television news broadcasts and in statements to employees at Walmart stores in California and Texas, Walmart unlawfully threatened employees with reprisal if they engaged in strikes and protests.

At stores in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Washington, Walmart unlawfully threatened, disciplined, and/or terminated employees for having engaged in legally protected strikes and protests.

At stores in California, Florida, and Texas, Walmart unlawfully threatened, surveilled, disciplined, and/or terminated employees in anticipation of or in response to employees’ other protected concerted activities

Friday, January 3, 2014

North Dakota blast prompts review of oil train safety

A federal safety alert Thursday warned that crude oil flowing out of new fields in North Dakota may be more flammable than expected, a caution that comes several days after a train carrying about 3.5 million gallons of the same oil crashed in the state and set off a massive explosion.

The accident on the BNSF Railway, the fourth such explosion in North America involving crude oil trains, has fed mounting concerns over public safety as the rail industry sharply increases the use of rail to transport surging crude production in North Dakota, Texas and Colorado.
Following the latest derailment and crash, which forced the evacuation of more than 1,000 residents from the town of Casselton, the National Transportation Safety Board has launched the nation's first broad examination of the safety of moving petroleum by rail.
Trains carrying oil have multiplied across the country as environmental concerns and political maneuvering have delayed approval of a major new pipeline to transport oil to Gulf Coast refineries. The issue may be most crucial for cities in the West, which were often founded and developed by railroads so that main lines go directly through the centers of today's urban areas.
Crude oil shipments by rail have shot up 25-fold in the last several years as producers rush oil from newly developing shale fields to market. California alone has seen a fourfold increase over the last year, with current shipments of about 200,000 barrels a month.
Refinery operators this...

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Sunday, December 29, 2013

US flu activity keeps climbing

Today's post was shared by CIDRAP and comes from www.cidrap.umn.edu

Highly magnified, digitally colorized
electromicrograph of 2009 H1N1 influenza virus,
the predominant strain this season.

US influenza activity kept climbing last week, as several states outside the South reported widespread cases, and the 2009 H1N1 virus continued to be the predominant strain, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Ten states reported geographically widespread flu activity, up from just four southern states the week before. The ten are Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wyoming.
Also, six states reported high influenza-like illness (ILI) activity as measured by visits to sentinel clinics, up from four states the previous week, the CDC reported. Nationally, 3.0% of medical visits were due to ILI, compared with the national baseline of 2.0%.
States with high ILI activity were Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. Another eight states cited moderate ILI activity, and the rest had low or minimal numbers.
The CDC also reported a big jump in the percentage of respiratory samples that tested positive for flu: 24.1% (of 6,813 specimens), versus 17.8% a week earlier.

An H1N1 season so far

Of the positive specimens, more than 98% were influenza A viruses, and 2009 H1N1—the former pandemic virus, now a seasonal strain—accounted for nearly all of those that were subtyped. Only 1.8% of the positive specimens were influenza B isolates.
Last week the...

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Friday, November 15, 2013

White House rejects asbestos bill

Today's post was shared by Linda Reinstein and comes from www.politico.com

President Barack Obama’s administration came out against a key piece of asbestos legislation Tuesday just days after headlining a fundraiser at the homes of two of the top asbestos litigators in the country.
In a swing through Texas last week, two of the country’s top asbestos attorneys, Russell Budd and Peter Kraus, hosted fundraisers that brought in an expected $1 million-plus for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee over the course of three hours at their Dallas-area homes.
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On Tuesday evening the White House put out a statement opposing a piece of legislation aimed at regulating asbestos bankruptcy trusts. Budd and Kraus both sit on the boards of several of these trusts.

The White House and the Office of Management and Budget did not respond to a request for comment.
The trusts allow companies with significant liabilities to secure protection for future claims, but often have advisory committees made up of people from the same law firms that represent the asbestos clients.
The Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency (FACT) Act — backed by business interests such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — would require the trusts to disclose additional information about the claims the pay to victims, in order prevent false or inflated claims.
In a statement Tuesday evening, the White House warned that the legislation would make publicly available the personal information of individuals who had filed asbestos-related injuries. Additionally,...

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Friday, November 8, 2013

At US’s favorite water park, 20 year old fatally crushed in wave machine, his fifth week on the job

Today's blog is shared from the pump handle scienceblogs.com.

“They sure kept that quiet.”
My neighbors had that reaction when I told them about the 20-year old worker who was killed on-the-job at one of the Schlitterbahn water parks. This particular amusement-park company has four large water resorts in Texas and Kansas. My neighbors frequent the one in New Braunfels, TX, along with 900,000 other annual visitors, during central Texas’ hot spring and summer months. I knew they’d want to know this story.
In March 2013, Nicolas “Nico” Benavides, 20, had been hired as a lifeguard, and had only been working a few weeks at the Schlitterbahn on South Padre Island. Benavides and another worker were doing maintenance on the guts of a wave pool. News accounts report that an overhead mechanical door

“slammed down, hitting Benavides in the head, leaving him and the other worker pinned beneath it.”

The young man’s family kept him on life support for several days until his organs could be donated.
Schlitterbahn issued a statement saying, in part,

“Nico Benavides, who was injured during a March 6 maintenance accident has died. …The safety of our employees and guests is of paramount importance to us.” [emphasis added]

This was no accident. An accident is an event that cannot be foreseen, or occurs by chance. Nico Benavides’ death was neither.
OSHA’s investigation of the incident revealed that Schlitterbahn management did not have a lock-out/tag-out program. This is a...

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Monday, October 28, 2013

NTSB says Texas Spirit Air flight had "uncontained" failure

Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.cbsnews.com

A Spirit Airlines plane at Dallas-Forth Worth Airport on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013.

A National Transportation Safety Board official says a Spirit Airlines jet bound for Atlanta sustained an engine failure before safely returning to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

Plane engine explodes, smoke forces plane to turn back

The official says it was an "uncontained" failure. That means broken pieces and parts of the engine escaped the outer engine housing, an unusual and especially serious occurrence.
The official spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
Aircraft engines are designed to contain any broken pieces within the engine during a failure.
Passengers aboard the Airbus A319 on Tuesday say they heard an explosion and saw flames come up the side of the plane, lighting up the interior. They reported that smoke filled the cabin.
Passenger Casey Rogers described his experience in a phone call with CBS station KTVT in Dallas: "I saw the engine blow up on the outside of the plane, fire and all that. I'm thinking to myself, I see this on the movies. I'm usually on my couch eating popcorn. This never happened to me. And here I am 25,000 feet above the ground and this is happening to me."
Rogers said the crew was professional and handled the situation well.
Spirit spokeswoman Misty Pinson says no one on Flight 165 was injured.

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Saturday, October 12, 2013

Where's the New Jersey Conference?

Today's post was shared by WorkCompCentral and comes from daviddepaolo.blogspot.com

There's going to be lots of press surrounding the latest CompScope Benchmarks Study
released by the Workers' Compensation Research Institute, as there always is, and should be. After all, the WCRI is one of the top research groups in our industry and the leadership and staff there work hard to provide as complete and unbiased data as possible.

What is unique about the latest study of 16 states is one common theme - controlling costs has more to do with instituting price schedules for medical services than any other single factor.
The premier example is Illinois, which, after reducing medical fees by 30% across the board on Sept. 1, 2011, saw all medical payments for claims with seven days of lost time declined by 5% for injuries arising in 2011 and evaluated as of 2012. Prices paid for non-hospital services dropped by 24% between 2010 and 2012.

And Texas' claim costs, which ranked the highest in the nation prior to a set of reforms passed in 2005, are now typical of the states studied, according to WCRI , with medical costs per claim 17% lower than the 16-state median for 2009 claims evaluated in 2012. The Institute expects costs to decline further in Texas with the prescription drug formulary that became effective 9/1/2011.
The state's claim cost growth rate is also slowing. Claims costs in Texas grew by between 3% and 6% per year between 2006 and 2011. Costs per claim for the 2010/2012 study period were $5,829 – slightly higher than the $5,354 median.

The flip side is...

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Friday, October 11, 2013

Safety Agency Cites Owners in Texas Plant in Explosion

Todays's post shared from the NYTimes.com

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited the owners of a fertilizer plant in West, Tex., that blew up in April, killing 15 people, with 24 “serious violations,” Senator Barbara Boxer, of California, said on Thursday. But the agency has not announced the action because its public affairs staff has been furloughed by the government shutdown, Ms. Boxer said.

Democrat
The violations included unsafe handling and storage of explosive and flammable chemicals, missing labels on storage tanks, failing to pressure-test hoses, bad or missing valves, and failing to have an emergency response plan. The agency also said that some workers were not trained for their jobs.

OSHA, which also proposed a fine of $118,300, decided to issue the citations now, during the government shutdown, to avoid a statute of limitations problem, Ms. Boxer said. She said that while the fine was disproportionately small, considering the deaths, injuries and widespread damage, other federal agencies were also investigating the explosion. Some of those investigations have been delayed by the shutdown, however.

Ms. Boxer is chairwoman of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, which does not oversee OSHA but does oversee another agency with jurisdiction at the Texas plant, the Environmental Protection Agency.

Ms. Boxer said that despite the shutdown, news of the enforcement action should be disseminated to...

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Thursday, October 3, 2013

Many Nursing Homes Operate Without Adequate Sprinkler Systems

Today's post was shared by The New Old Age and comes from newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com

A body was removed from the Greenwood Health Center in Hartford, Conn., after a fire in 2003.

Associated PressA body was removed from the Greenwood Health Center in Hartford, Conn., after a fire in 2003.

Now and then, you learn something about caring for the elderly that stops you in your tracks.

Like this: Until last month, federal regulations did not require all nursing homes to have automatic sprinkler systems.

It’s a bit staggering, isn’t it? Automatic sprinklers, the most effective protection against fires, have been mandated in any new nursing home certified by Medicare and Medicaid, or in new construction added to an existing facility, since 2000. But for older nursing homes, there was no such regulation until August 2008 — and the industry, complaining about high costs, was given five years to comply.

That deadline passed last month, but more than 1,100 older nursing homes still do not have sprinklers or have only “partial” systems, federal records show.

Most of these places have some sprinklers — perhaps only in laundries and kitchens, perhaps in residents’ rooms but not hallways. What “partial” means in this context is unclear, a Medicare spokeswoman told me. But about 125 homes have no sprinklers, including 18 in Illinois, 16 in Texas and 13 in North Carolina. (You can see the list, though it may contain some reporting inaccuracies and may not reflect very recent changes.)

A fire in a nursing home is a horrifying...

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Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Do Cities Need Texting Zones?

This post is shared from Nicole Ferraro, Future Cities from www.informationweek.com

This week, New York's governor announced a plan to put "texting zones" on state highways. It got me thinking about whether cities need to do the same.

First, a bit about the news: In an effort to reduce the number of distracted drivers on the roads of New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo revealed a plan to put "texting zones" on the New York State Thruway and state highways, where drivers can pull over and respond to text messages.

This is, in part, a response to the fact that New York has seen a 365% increase in tickets issued to distracted drivers between the summers of 2012 and 2013 (In 2013, 16,027 people were pulled over for talking on cellphones, and 5,553 for texting, as compared to 4,284 and 924, respectively, in 2012).

As Cuomo said in a statement, "With this new effort, we are sending a clear message to drivers that there is no excuse to take your hands off the wheel and eyes off the road because your text can wait until the next Texting Zone."

Distracted driving is a huge issue for cities. Indeed, just last week we discussed a social media campaign launched by the Mayor of Houston, Texas, to unite Texan cities against texting while driving. With pedestrian death on the rise in cities across the US, there's an absolute need to curb driver distractions.

However, there's something about Cuomo's plan that bugs me -- mainly that, in a way, it caves to the compulsion drivers have to...

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Thursday, September 12, 2013

After West disaster, News study finds U.S. chemical safety data wrong about 90 percent

Even the best national data on chemical accidents is wrong nine times out of 10.

A Dallas Morning News analysis of more than 750,000 federal records found pervasive inaccuracies and holes in data on chemical accidents, such as the one in West that killed 15 people and injured more than 300.

In fact, no one at any level of government knows how often serious chemical accidents occur each year in the United States. And there is no plan in place for federal agencies to gather more accurate information.

As a result, the kind of data sharing ordered by President Barack Obama in response to West is unlikely to improve the government’s ability to answer even the most basic questions about chemical safety.

“We can track Gross National Product to the second and third decimal, but there is no reliable way of tracking even simple things like how many [chemical] accidents happen,” said Sam Mannan, a nationally recognized expert on chemical safety who recently testified before a congressional hearing on West.

“This is just scandalous.”

After the West explosion in April, The News asked a simple question: How often do serious or potentially serious industrial chemical accidents occur in Texas and nationwide? After scouring the four federal databases with the most comprehensive information available on chemical safety, The News concluded that there was no way to know.

For a recent four-year period, the paper managed to confirm at least...

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Thursday, August 29, 2013

After West disaster, News study finds U.S. chemical safety data wrong about 90 percent

Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from share.d-news.co

Even the best national data on chemical accidents is wrong nine times out of 10.
A Dallas Morning News analysis of more than 750,000 federal records found pervasive inaccuracies and holes in data on chemical accidents, such as the one in West that killed 15 people and injured more than 300.

In fact, no one at any level of government knows how often serious chemical accidents occur each year in the United States. And there is no plan in place for federal agencies to gather more accurate information.

As a result, the kind of data sharing ordered by President Barack Obama in response to West is unlikely to improve the government’s ability to answer even the most basic questions about chemical safety.

“We can track Gross National Product to the second and third decimal, but there is no reliable way of tracking even simple things like how many [chemical] accidents happen,” said Sam Mannan, a nationally recognized expert on chemical safety who recently testified before a congressional hearing on West.

“This is just scandalous.”
After the West explosion in April, The News asked a simple question: How often do serious or potentially serious industrial chemical accidents occur in Texas and nationwide? After scouring the four federal databases with the most comprehensive information available on chemical safety, The News concluded that there was no way to know.

For a recent four-year period, the paper managed to confirm at least 24...

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Improving Chemical Facility Safety and Security (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
White House releases executive order on improving chemical facility safety and security (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
Drivers Over Age 55 Far More Likely to Die in Job Accidents Than Younger (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
EPA Expands List of Safer Chemical Ingredients (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
Needlestick Injuries Are a Costly Problem for the Health Care Industry (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
Workplace Deaths Substantially Unreported (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries in 2012 (preliminary Results) (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

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