Workers' Compensation

Thursday, October 17, 2013

ADAO Special Report “The USA Asbestos Toxic Trade Continues”

Asbestos related disease has been a major burden to the US workers' compensation system. It is not yet banned in the US. Today's post was shared by Linda Reinstein and comes from www.asbestosdiseaseawareness.org

Presented at the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) Press Conference in Washington, D.C. on April 4, 2013Posted on April 9, 2013

Asbestos, a human carcinogen, has caused one of the worst man-made environmental disasters. The facts are irrefutable, yet each day, 30 Americans die from a preventable asbestos-caused disease.

Exposure to asbestos can cause mesothelioma and lung, gastrointestinal, laryngeal, and ovarian cancers, as well as non-malignant lung and pleural disorders.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) database statistics revealed that, from 1999 – 2013, the USA buried 43,351 Americans who died from mesothelioma and asbestosis – just two of the many diseases caused by asbestos.

In response to this continued public health crisis, eighteen months ago, I began asking three questions:

Who are the U.S. companies and/or government agencies importing asbestos?
What asbestos-containing products are being manufactured in the U.S.?
Where are the asbestos-containing products being used in or exported from the U.S.?

What seems simple isn’t always easy. I have been unable to get answers to any of my questions due to U.S. Code Title 13, Chapter 9, Section 301(g), which protects the confidentiality of export data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. This roadblock led me to a different question: Why is the United States “dependent on imports to meet manufacturing...

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Why the French are Fighting Over Work Hours

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.newyorker.com

It’s telling that in France, where several stores are fighting an order requiring them to close on Sundays, retail employees showed up at work last month wearing T-shirts that read, “YES WEEK END.” It was a play on Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan, and a symbol of the fact that some in France—where shops have been barred from opening on Sundays, with some exceptions, since 1906—have lately been eyeing a more American approach to work.

In September, a French tribunal de commerce said that two big home-improvement stores, Castorama and Leroy Merlin, would face daily fines of a hundred and twenty thousand euros per store (about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars) if they continue to operate on Sunday. The retailers have said they will open despite the fines, the result of a lawsuit. People in France like to work on home improvement on Sundays, which makes it one of the busiest days for do-it-yourself stores, accounting for between fifteen and twenty per cent of their sales.

Closing on Sunday could jeopardize the jobs of some twelve hundred employees, according to the Fédération des Magasins de Bricolage, which translates, roughly, as the Federation of Do-It-Yourself Stores.
“I really don
’t understand,” said one customer, quoted in the Catholic daily La Croix. “If everyone has agreed to work, why can’t you open the store?”
For an American coming from the world of 24/7...

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Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Jerry Brown vetoes public safety death benefits bill

An effort to expand benefits for survivors' of the high risk job of public safety officer met defeat in California with the veto of Governor Brown. Today's post was shared by CAAA and comes from blogs.sacbee.com

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed legislation Sunday that would have extended the statute of limitations for survivors of public safety officers to file a workers' compensation claim for death benefits.
Assembly Bill 1373, by Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, D-Los Angeles, would have extended the time limits for survivors' claims for injuries while on duty to 480 weeks from 240 weeks in cases involving cancer, tuberculosis or blood-borne infections diseases.
Brown vetoed a broader version of the bill last year, and in vetoing an unrelated bill Saturday regarding the timeliness of sex abuse victims' claims, the Democratic governor delivered a virtual treatise on the significance of statutes of limitation.
In his veto message, Brown said the measure is "identical to the one I vetoed last year."
"At that time, I outlined the information needed to properly evaluate the implications of this bill," he wrote. "I have not yet received that information."
In his veto a year ago of Assembly Bill 2451, Brown said there was "little more than anecdotal evidence" available to determine how to balance "serious fiscal constraints faced at all levels of government against our shared priority to adequately and fairly compensate the families of those public safety heroes who succumb to work-related injuries and disease."
This year's bill was backed by labor unions representing firefighters and law enforcement officers, who argued existing law fails to provide for the families of...

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2nd worker dies at 49ers stadium construction site

Today's post was shared by CAAA and comes from www.sacbee.com

Construction is slated to restart Tuesday at the new $1.2 billion San Francisco 49ers showcase stadium after police and fire investigators determined a truck driver's death was a workplace accident and not a crime.

The delivery truck driver was crushed early Monday by a bundle of rebar being unloaded from his truck, officials at the scene said. It's the second worker death at the construction project.

An ambulance rushed the severely injured worker to a local hospital, where he died, according to a spokesman for Turner/Devcon, the construction company building Levi's Stadium.

"We are deeply saddened to confirm that the driver has passed away as a result of his injuries," spokesman Jonathan Harvey said.

Harvey said state workplace safety officials told them Monday that while their investigation is ongoing and could take months, "the jobsite has been deemed safe and is permitted to reopen."

The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner's Office identified the man as Edward Erving Lake II, 60, of Vacaville. He was an employee of Gerdau Ameristeel's Napa Reinforcing Steel facility, a subcontractor working on the stadium, Gerdau's spokeswoman Kimberly M. Selph said.

In a statement, the 49ers said their "sincerest thoughts and prayers are with the family, friends and co-workers affected by this tragedy." The team also said there were plans to have support on-site Tuesday to help workers with their emotions...

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Too Much Temptation To Do the Wrong Thing

The business of workers' compensation in New York, and the economic tension it generates, is the focus of a commentary by the publisher of Work Comp Central, David Depaolo. Today's post was shared by WorkCompCentral and comes from daviddepaolo.blogspot.com

The problem with workers' compensation being funded and managed by private interests is that there is simply too much temptation to do the wrong things for the wrong reasons - usually those reasons involve profiting at the expense of everyone else.

And so it seems in New York where an associate attorney in the State Workers' Compensation Board General Counsel's Office said in an affidavit filed in New York Supreme Court Friday that improper cost-shifting by the state's workers' compensation carriers has caused the liabilities of the state's Reopened Case Fund to "spiral exponentially," of course at the expense of employers.

After the historical reform of New York's system by then Gov. Eliot Spitzer, that imposed the state's first duration caps on permanent partial disability benefits, carriers began settling the indemnity portion of claims, leaving medical treatment open.

Three years after the indemnity payments run out, carriers can then file claims with the fund providing medical evidence that the workers' condition has changed, thereby shifting the cost of medical care for injured workers over to the Fund.

The lawsuit in which the affidavit was filed was initiated by Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. and 19 of its sister insurers to block a section of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 2013-2014 budget the close the fund on Jan. 1, 2014.

Coumo made closing the fund part of the "Business Relief Act" included in his $141.3 billion budget and predicted that closing the fund will save New York...

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Tuesday, October 15, 2013

What a Government Default Will Do To Workers' Compensation

With only hours left, and the politicians in Washington DC still unsettled about how to resolve a US credit default, the focus turns to the impact on workers' compensation programs throughout the country.

Expanding on the problems besieging compensation programs following the US Government Shutdown, things are going to get much worse and very quickly. Social Security will stop paying benefits, its contractors and medical providers. Closing down those contributions will literally suffocate transactional information concerning integration of Medicare Secondary Payer Act benefits and reimbursement. Calculating offsets and reverse offsets will become an impossibility. Insurance companies in reverse offset states will be required to fund more dollars into the system as application flow into the state systems to modify prior awards still being paid.

Employers dependent upon government payments, including funding and contracts, will be unable to pay workers and insurance company premiums. Cascading financial distress will implode the economy and unemployment will become rampant.

Additional burdens will be placed upon injured workers who even already are struggling to make ends meet and obtain medical treatment with absolutely no Federal safety net in place to catch them. Injured workers with pending claims will be unable to seek medical and pharmaceutical benefits from collaterally funded programs.

Federal dollars actually fund over 70% on state rehabilitation programs. These programs will quickly dry up, and the those injured workers who are seeking placement in a new job through rehabilitation will be locked out of the states.

Workplaces will continue to be unregulated as OSHA (The Occupational Health Administration) will be unable to financially fund enforcement programs, new safety programs and even review comments for pending regulations, ie. The Smart Act.

Investigations requirement Federal records, including prior military records, will become increasingly difficult to secure. Stalling this process will delay completed workers' compensation medical records, expert evaluation opinions and the adjudication of workers' compensation claims.

Quite a mess! Not a pleasant prospect to look forward to, as the clock keeps clicking down

Monday, October 14, 2013

California To Regulate New Home Care

Injured workers have been receiving home health care at increased rates as hospitals and rehabilitation cnters are releasing recuperating workers quickly under discharge protocols. Today's post is shared from the NY Times.

California has become the latest state to tighten oversight of home health agencies that provide custodial care — help with bathing, dressing, toileting and other basic tasks — to older adults and people with disabilities.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday signed the Home Care Services Consumer Protection Act of 2013, which will require agencies to conduct background checks on workers, provide five hours of training, list aides in an online registry and obtain a license certifying their compliance with basic standards. Home health agencies had opposed the bill’s training and background check requirements.

The governor vetoed a similar bill last year; this year’s version dropped a requirement that aides hired from referral agencies or directly by seniors get background checks and be listed in the online registry. Mr. Brown also asked for a delay in putting the legislation in place until January 2016.

Critics have long argued that the home care industry has been too lightly regulated. According to a new study in the Journal of Applied Gerontology, only 15 states require training for home care workers or on-site supervision of their activities. Altogether, 29 states mandate that agencies be licensed.

The move to tighten industry...

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Hank Patterson Receives the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award

This week, Henry “Hank” N. Patterson, Jr. was presented with the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual dinner of the Workplace Injury and Advocacy Group (WILG), in Palm Beach, Florida. For his entire career, Hank has zealously advanced the rights of workers. He has held leadership positions in national legal organizations, including the American Bar Association, and helped establish the College of Workers Compensation Lawyers.

Hank graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1963 and from UNC Law School in 1966, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif. Before entering private practice, he served as law clerk to the Honorable J. Braxton Craven, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and worked as an attorney in Region 11 of the National Labor Relations Board.

He has served on legislative study commissions and as Chair of the Workers’ Rights Section of the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers, Co-Chair of the North Carolina Bar Association’s Workers’ Compensation Committee, and member of the Advisory Council to the Chair of the North Carolina Industrial Commission. Hank is a Board Certified Specialist in Workers’ Compensation Law. His practice is limited to the areas of workers’ compensation, labor and employment, and disability entitlements.

National Survey: Working Longer—Older Americans’ Attitudes on Work and Retirement

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research has released the results of a major new survey exploring the views of older Americans about their plans for work and retirement. It provides in-depth information about a rapidly growing segment of the population that by choice or circumstance is working longer. The Great Recession has had a marked impact on retirement plans.

“The survey illuminates an important shift in Americans’ attitudes toward work, aging, and retirement,” said Trevor Tompson, director of the AP-NORC Center. “Retirement is not only coming later in life, it no longer represents a complete exit from the workforce. The data in this survey reveal strikingly different views of retirement among older workers today than those held by the prior generation.”

With funding provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted a national survey of 1,024 adults ages 50 and over. It is a segment of the population that is not only growing rapidly in numbers, but is also becoming substantially healthier. Projections show that the U.S. population age 65 and over will increase to 19 percent of the population by 2030, up from 13 percent in 2010, an estimated 72 million people. At the same time, people age 55 and over comprise the fastest growing segment of the workforce. By 2020, approximately one fourth of American workers will be...

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In Washington State, Home of Highest Minimum Wage, a City Aims Higher

Wages have a direct effect on workers' compensation benefits as they usually determine the rate of the benefit paid for temporary and permanent disability. Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com

Washington already has the highest state minimum wage in the country, at $9.19 an hour. Soon, voters in this tiny city south of Seattle will decide whether to push the local minimum even higher.

If a majority of the voters here say yes to a referendum known as Proposition 1 when their mail-in ballots start arriving this week, a minimum wage of $15 an hour would be required for many businesses in SeaTac, more than twice the federal minimum of $7.25.

The measure would lift wages for thousands of workers at one of the nation’s busiest airports, Seattle-Tacoma International, which is within city limits. But business and labor leaders say the economic and political implications, with local democracy going where state and federal legislators mostly fear to tread, could be equally profound.

Foxconn admits labour violation at China factory

Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.bbc.co.uk

Foxconn, the world's biggest contract electronics maker, has admitted student interns worked shifts at a factory in China that were in violation of its company policies.

Foxconn

The firm, which makes products for some the world's biggest brands, has been under scrutiny for labour practices.
It had admitted to hiring underage interns at the same unit last year.

Foxconn said actions had been taken to bring the factory "into full compliance with our code and policies".

"There have been a few instances where our policies pertaining to overtime and night shift work were not enforced," the company said in a statement.

The manufacturing giant is owned by Taiwanese group Hon Hai Precision and employs about 800,000 workers around the globe.

Foxconn, while not a household name in itself for many consumers, is used by most of the big technology giants around the world, including Apple, Sony, Microsoft, HP, and Nokia.
It first came under scrutiny for its labour practices when 13 employees committed suicide at its Chinese plants in 2010.
The incidents raised concerns over working conditions at its units in China and drew attention to growing labour strikes.
For its part, Foxconn responded by raising wages, shortening working hours and employing counsellors on site.
It also installed suicide nets to factory living-quarters at its Shenzhen factory.

Also in 2010, Foxconn temporarily shut down a unit in India after 250 workers fell sick.

And in May 2011, two people were killed after...

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U.S. asbestos imports condemned by health experts, activists

Today's post was shared by Linda Reinstein and comes from www.publicintegrity.org

More than 50 countries have banned asbestos, a toxic mineral used in building materials, insulation, automobile brakes and other products.

The United States isn’t one of them. Last year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, 1,060 metric tons — more than 2.3 million pounds — came into the country, all of it from Brazil. “Based on current trends,” the USGS says, “U.S. asbestos consumption is likely to remain near the 1,000-ton level …”

Public health experts and anti-asbestos activists find this distressing.
Linda Reinstein, who lost her husband to mesothelioma, an especially virulent form of cancer tied to asbestos exposure, said she’s “appalled and disgusted that the United States still allows the importation of asbestos to meet so-called manufacturing needs.

When your symptoms don't tell the whole story

Today's post was shared by RWJF PublicHealth and comes from www.marketplace.org

Instead of asking you to talk about the pain in your foot, or the ache in your chest, health care workers are starting to ask you about...your story.

There’s an emerging idea in health care that social and psychological conditions -- like poverty and chronic stress -- change how your body and brain work, and that can have damaging long-term effects on your health.

Doctors and nurses from northern California to Camden, N.J., are beginning to see that the first step in treating these patients is often treating the part of the illness that’s not on the surface. Patients like 30-year-old Elizabeth Philkill.

Asbestos Can Take Your Breath Away, Forever

Today's post was shared by Linda Reinstein and comes from blog.saferchemicals.org

The time is now for the Senate to unanimously support the passage of the Safe Chemicals Act (S.847). We need to do more to protect our children from BPAs, fire retardants and other dangerous toxins in our world.

What many don’t realize is that asbestos is still legal and lethal in theUnited States, tragically impacting families. I know because it happened to us.

I remember the day when my husband AlanAlan Was diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma as if it were yesterday. We had never heard of mesothelioma, and we were devastated when we learned that there is no cure. Our daughter was only ten years old when we began our arduous family battle to fight mesothelioma and work with Congress To ban asbestos.

Asbestos victims speak out

Today's post was shared by Linda Reinstein and comes from blog.saferchemicals.org

By Linda Reinstein, Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization

"Out of the hottest fire comes the strongest steel." Chinese Proverb

The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), the largest independent asbestos victims’ organization in the U.S., is pleased to join other NGOs in the SaferChemicals, Healthy Family coalition’s mission to reform the Toxic SubstancesControl Act (TSCA), the principal federal law governing the use and safety of the thousands of chemicals we are exposed to in our everyday lives.

TSCA was passed more than 30years ago and is grossly out of date. ADAO has been a stakeholder in discussions with Congressional leadership since 2004. You can read my personal journey, and how I came to advocate for this issue here.

As I Remind Congress,“History is a great teacher to those who listen.”

Science And technology have made exponential advancements. As a mother and mesothelioma widow, I know the Safer Chemicals, Healthy FamilyFamily Coalition’s efforts will improve lives if Congress can draft and pass legislation to protect public health and our environment. I see hope on the horizon, but we have stalled. Bipartisan support is essential in getting a bill to the President’s desk, but we face a hurdle with the Chemical Safety Improvement Act (CSIA).

ADAO opposes the current language of CSIA, due to deep concerns that the bill as currently written does not deliver meaningful reform to TSCA and does not adequately protect Americans from the worst...

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What we know about football and repetitive brain trauma

Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

Brain tissue images, with tau protein in brown. The brain on the left is from a normal subject, the brain in the middle is from a former football player, and the brain on the right is from a former boxer.Courtesy of the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy.
League of Denial, a PBS Frontline documentary about the NFL's response (or lack thereof) to concussions and long-term brain injuries among its players, airs tonight. The investigation attempts to hash out what the league really knew about player safety while it downplayed the ill effects the sport has on its athletes. But what exactly are those effects, and what about them made thousands of former players sue the NFL over their injuries?
While the symptoms of a concussion—dizziness, vomiting, memory loss—can be felt immediately, the long-term impacts of repeated brain trauma have been harder to study. Research points to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, as one of the major outcomes. CTE is caused by a buildup of tau, a protein that strangles brain cells and degenerates brain tissue, which is caused by repetitive brain trauma like the hits football players endure. This leads to depression, increased aggression, lack of impulse control, and eventually dementia, which may not manifest until years or even decades after the brain injuries took place. While CTE can only be definitively identified after a patient dies, a pilot study at the University of...

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Thursday, October 17, 2013

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"Out of the hottest fire comes the strongest steel." Chinese Proverb

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