Florida rejects workers' compensation rate hike

Workers' compensation insurance has been stressed under the on going US economic downturn. lower premiums, which are based on payrolls, and increasing medical costs, are significant causes. Despite the pressure of NCCI to increase the cost dramatically, FL has officially rejected that proposal. Today's post is shared from naplesnews.com.

Florida regulators are rejecting a proposed 1 percent hike in workers compensation insurance rates. Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty on Wednesday announced that he won't approve the hike that had been requested by insurers that provide coverage for on-the-job injuries. But McCarty says that his office would approve a slightly lower hike 0.7 percent if insurers resubmitted their request. That hike on employers would take effect on Jan. 1. If the hike is ultimately approved it would make the fourth straight year that workers' compensation insurance rates have increased. The rate hike proposal was submitted by the National Council on Compensation Insurance. The council is a rating and data collection agency owned by insurance companies. It submits rate filings on their behalf.

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Labor Group Says Haiti's Factories Are Unsafe

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from abcnews.go.com

Haiti's garment factories are unsafe for their workers, often lacking marked fire exits, safe drinking water and sufficient toilets, a labor group said Wednesday. A study by the Geneva-based Better Work organization looked at working conditions in 23 Haitian factories from May to August. It found 13 workplaces were not sufficiently lighted, and 11 failed to clearly mark emergency exits and escape routes. Eleven factories did not have adequate fire-fighting equipment. It also found that 21 did not have the legally required number of toilets, and the same number didn't have onsite medical facilities and staff. Henri-Claude Muller-Poitevien, president of a government commission that oversees Haiti's assembly plants, said he welcomed the survey by the labor compliance group, which is supported by the International Labor Organization and the World Bank's International Finance Corporation. He said his commission is working with Better Work and the fire department to mark emergency exits and install fire-fighting equipment. "All the buildings need improvement — this is what we are doing now," Muller-Poitevien said. "We definitely want to comply with everything, but we will never be the triple-A student." Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe responded on his blog Tuesday night to a separate report from another labor group that alleges assembly plants don't pay their workers even the minimum wage. He said the country is "continuing to build an environment that holds ourselves and...

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Tribunal finds Chevron not liable for environmental claims in Ecuador

Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com

Chevron Corp. announced Wednesday that an international arbitration tribunal has found the company not liable for environmental claims in Ecuador. The tribunal is convened under the authority of the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty, also known as the BIT, and administered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The PCA, located in The Hague, Netherlands, administers cases arising out of international treaties and other agreements to arbitrate. On Tuesday, the tribunal issued a partial award in favor of Chevron and its subsidiary, Texaco Petroleum Company, or TexPet. The tribunal found that the settlement and release agreements that the government of Ecuador entered into with TexPet released TexPet and its affiliates of any liability for all public interest or collective environmental claims. The arbitration stems from Ecuador’s interference in the ongoing environmental lawsuit against the company. “The game is up. This award by an eminent international tribunal confirms that the fraudulent claims against Chevron should not have been brought in the first place,” Hewitt Pate, Chevron’s vice president and general counsel, said in a statement. “It is now beyond question that efforts by American plaintiffs lawyers and the government of Ecuador to enforce this fraudulent judgment violate Ecuadorian, U.S. and international law. “Continuing to support this fraud only increases the government of...

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