Workers' Compensation

Thursday, January 8, 2015

“A less friendly, less comforting place”: Steve Greenhouse on the end of an era in labor reporting

Today's post is shared from salon.com

Flush as it is with talent and experience, it’s inevitable that a round of buyouts at the New York Times will feature at least a few (and often more than a few) beloved journalists either retiring altogether or moving on to new pastures.

Even still, when the Times’ longtime labor and work reporter Steven Greenhouse announced on Twitter near the end of last year that he was accepting a “generous buyout offer” from the Grey Lady and bringing an end to a whopping 31 years at the Times, the news was greeted with dismay not only by people in the media, but by readers who’ve long enjoyed his clear-eyed and celebrated work. For his part, Greenhouse said in a memo sent around to Times staff that accepting the buyout was “one of the toughest decisions of my life” but that he couldn’t refuse both the Times’ offer as well as the chance to slow down after spending more than three decades writing at a crisp, tireless pace.

Because Greenhouse was one of the most influential and respected labor reporters left in traditional media, and because his buyout came during an era when organized labor is in worse shape than it’s been in perhaps as much as a century, Salon decided recently to speak with him over the phone about his decision to step down, his plans for the future, the ways the American workplace has changed in the past generation, and what he expects from the media on workplace and labor issues in the future. Our...

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What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Today's post is shared from fbgslaw.com/
The California Applicants’ Attorneys Association (CAAA), whose members represent Californians injured on the job, today continued its “What’s Wrong with this Picture?” series with an Infographic showing that workers’ compensation insurance companies pay just twenty percent of the costs of on-the-job injury claims, shifting eighty percent to taxpayer-funded public health programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and other disability funds, private group health insurance and injured employees and their families. The infographic is based on a national study by University of California, Davis, Professor Paul Leigh that was published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Professor Leigh said in releasing the study’s findings, “Cost shifting affects everyone, because we’re all paying higher Medicare and income taxes to help cover that 79 percent.”
“Why should taxpayers, private health insurers and injured employees pay eighty percent of the costs that insurance companies are paid by employers to cover?” asked CAAA President Bernardo de la Torre. “Insurance carriers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars delaying and denying their own doctors’ recommended medical treatment. When insurance carriers delay and deny medical care and disability compensation for work-related injuries, they shift those costs onto others. There are no meaningful penalties in...

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Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Data from nurses’ study finds link between night shifts, higher mortality risk

Today's post is shared from http://scienceblogs.com/
A new analysis of data from the world’s largest and longest-running study of women’s health finds that rotating night shift work is associated with higher mortality rates. The new findings add to a growing awareness that long-term night shift work comes with serious occupational health risks.
Published this month in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the study found that all-cause and cardiovascular disease-related mortality were significantly increased among women who worked more than five years of rotating night shifts when compared to those who never worked the night shift. In addition, the study found that working 15 or more years of rotating night shifts was associated with a modest increase in lung cancer mortality. Previous research has also found a link between working the night shift and serious health risks. In fact, in 2007, the World Health Organization designated night shift work as a probable carcinogen, as it disrupts the physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a daily cycle — otherwise known as circadian rhythms. Study authors Fangyi Gu, Jiali Han, Francine Laden, An Pan, Neil Caporaso, Meir Stampfer, Ichiro Kawachi, Kathryn Rexrode, Walter Willett, Susan Hankinson, Frank Speizer and Eva Schernhammer write:

The circadian system and its prime marker, melatonin, are considered to have anti-tumor effects through multiple pathways, including antioxidant activity,...

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GOP Majority’s Agenda Includes Fast Action On Health Law Issues

Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from kaiserhealthnews.org

News outlets report that Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate's new majority leader, plans to take action to undo some parts of the health law, but he acknowledges that a full repeal is unlikely. Also, some reports examine goals of other Republican congressional leaders
The Washington Post: New Senate Majority Leader’s Main Goal For GOP: Don’t Be Scary
Mitch McConnell has an unusual admonition for the new Republican majority as it takes over the Senate this week: Don’t be “scary.” The incoming Senate majority leader has set a political goal for the next two years of overseeing a functioning, reasonable majority on Capitol Hill that scores some measured conservative wins, particularly against environmental regulations, but probably not big victories such as a full repeal of the health-care law. McConnell’s priority is to set the stage for a potential GOP presidential victory in 2016. (Kane, 1/4)
The Associated Press: New GOP Senate Chairmen Aim To Undo Obama Policies
Republican senators poised to lead major committees when the GOP takes charge are intent on pushing back many of President Barack Obama's policies, ... Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, 74, is a former education secretary under President George H.W. Bush, governor and president of the University of Tennessee. … He's called the health care law a "historic mistake" and supports repealing it. He's also said modernizing the National Institutes of Health and Food and...

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Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Selecting the right surgeon is a big deal

Workers' Compensation was designed to provide the best available medical treatment possible. A good surgical results benefits all stakeholders. The patient has a better outcome, the employer gains an employee who is productive in the workplace, and the insurance company ultimately pays less indemnification by way of permanent disability and a reduced cost for medical follow up care.

Over the decades since its original enactment 1911, the issue of cost of medical care has come to the forefront. Some states, such as New Jersey, prohibit an employee's free selection of a medical provider. Additionally, some employers and their insurance companies have contractually negotiated a best price fee with medical providers and have an established medical care networks, consequently restricting the employee's free selection.

A recent article authored by Peter Scardino is the chief of surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) focuses on the need to select the best surgeon in order to obtain the best outcome.

“You can think of surgery as not really that different than golf.” Peter Scardino is the chief of surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). He has performed more than 4,000 open radical prostatectomies. “Very good athletes and intelligent people can be wildly different in their ability to drive or chip or putt. I think the same thing’s true in the operating room.”

The difference is that golfers keep score. Andrew Vickers, a biostatistician at MSK, would hear cancer surgeons at the hospital having heated debates about, say, how often they took out a patient’s whole kidney versus just a part of it. “Wait a minute,” he remembers thinking. “Don’t you know this?”

“How come they didn’t know this already?”

In the summer of 2009, he and Scardino teamed up to begin work on a software project, called Amplio (from the Latin for “to improve”), to give surgeons detailed feedback about their performance. The program—still in its early stages but already starting to be shared with other hospitals — started with a simple premise: the only way a surgeon is going to get better is if he knows where he stands.

Vickers likes to put it this way. His brother-in-law is a bond salesman, and you can ask him, How’d you do last week?, and he’ll tell you not just his own numbers, but the numbers for his whole group.

Why should it be any different when lives are in the balance?

Click here to read the entire article: "Making the Cut: Which surgeon you get matters — a lot. But how do we know who the good ones are?"

Weather Alert: Workers' Need to Prepare for Cold Weather Exposures

The United States weather bureau has predicted bitter cold for a vast segment of the nation. Workers who maybe exposed to frigid weather conditions should consult with the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health information in order to protect themselves from cold weather exposures. Such exposures may result in compensable injuries and illnesses for which workers' compensation benefits may be available.

Short Range Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 358 PM EST Tue Jan 06 2015 Valid 00Z Wed Jan 07 2015 - 00Z Fri Jan 09 2015

***Bitterly cold temperatures from the Dakotas to the Northeast

***Lake effect snow continues downwind of the Great Lakes

***Mild and dry for the western part of the country

*** The weather pattern over the next few days will feature a massive surface high settling southward from Canada to the Great Plains on Wednesday, following by another large surface high by the end of the week.

Both of these features are of Arctic origin, and will bring bitterly cold weather from the western High Plains to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast U.S. Widespread subzero overnight lows are forecast for the Dakotas, Upper Midwest, Great Lakes, and interior New England. Wind chill advisories and warnings are in effect for many of these same areas, with some of the coldest wind chill readings in the -25 to -45 degree range!

Some record low temperatures are also possible. In addition to the frigid temperatures, the cold air advection over the Great Lakes along with upper-level shortwave energy moving over the region is expected to produce significant lake effect snow downwind from the Great Lakes through midweek. The heaviest snow is likely to occur east of lakes Erie and Ontario, where local amounts will easily exceed one foot.

Some upslope snow is likely in the central and northern Appalachians as well. The western U.S. is expected to remain dry with mild temperatures through the end of the week. Graphics available at www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/basicwx/basicwx_wbg.php

Monday, January 5, 2015

Asbestos Judgement Final: Second Circuit confirms asbestos judgment against Travelers

Congratuations to Motley Rice for successfully concluding a long and arduous fight on behalf of asbestos victims.

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT CONFIRMS ASBESTOS JUDGMENT AGAINST TRAVELERS
Insurer must finally pay $500 million in asbestos-related settlements

MT. PLEASANT, SC – (January 5, 2015) – Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, by denying a request for rehearing and a rehearing en banc, confirmed that the Settlement Agreements Travelers agreed to in 2004 were binding and enforceable contracts between the parties, that all conditions had been satisfied, and that, in an attempt to avoid its obligation to thousands of asbestos victims, whatever Travelers’ “private hopes and dreams were,” they were not supported by the language of the agreement.

“Travelers now has to finally live up to its commitment and provide rightful compensation to asbestos victims who waited more than a decade for this to be settled and done with,” says Motley Rice co-founder Joe Rice. “We are gratified that perseverance by all involved has resulted in this positive, and now, final ruling.”

Attorneys with Motley Rice LLC have played a central role in the litigation against Travelers for its alleged breach of duty to the injured asbestos victims for more than 20 years. This litigation was spearheaded out of the consolidated asbestos litigation in West Virginia State Court and then transferred...

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NJ Medical Costs Per Claim Increase

NJ is a jurisdiction where the employer has exclusive control over the selection of medical providers for workers' compensation claims. NJ also has no medical fee schedule. Neverthe less, WCRI report that medical costs per claim are increasing above the national average.

The report, CompScope™ Medical Benchmarks for New Jersey, 15th Edition, found medical payments per claim grew less than 3 percent per year from 2010 to 2012―about half the annual rate of the prior three years.

The study cited changes in both key components of medical payments per workers’ compensation claim: the price paid for each service rendered and the number of services performed in each claim (generally called utilization).

The study found a decrease or little change in utilization of many nonhospital services─a key factor in the recent slower growth in medical costs because payments for nonhospital care accounted for roughly two-thirds of medical payments in New Jersey. Slower growth in hospital outpatient payments per service was also a factor. Payments for hospital inpatient treatment continued to rise though.

The recent trends coincided with an increase in the use of networks in caring for injured workers. States that do not regulate reimbursements for medical care through a traditional fee schedule (like New Jersey) often use medical networks to help control medical costs through the management of claims and negotiated payment discounts.

Despite the recent slower growth, medical payments per claim in New Jersey remained higher than most of the 16 states WCRI studied, primarily due to higher prices paid for medical care.

In several states, WCRI researchers saw slowdowns in claims growth similar to what they found in New Jersey, namely growth of 3 percent or less from 2010 to 2012, after growth of 4 to 8 percent a year, on average, from 2007 to 2010. Reasons for the slowdown differed by state, the study said.

The Cambridge-based WCRI is recognized as a leader in providing high-quality, objective information about public policy issues involving workers' compensation systems.

Click on the following link to purchase a copy of this study:http://www.wcrinet.org/result/csmed15_NJ_result.html

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Vancouver, WA Road Paver Charged with Unregistered Contracting

Today's post comes from guest author Kit Case, from Causey Law Firm.

A Vancouver, WA man faces criminal charges that he operated as an unregistered contractor while paving driveways for Clark County residents. Some Clark County customers claimed his work was shoddy or never finished.

The Washington Attorney General’s Office has charged Salvador Rodriguez, 44, with six counts of unregistered contracting, a gross misdemeanor. He also faces two felonies − one count each of doing business without workers’ compensation insurance and failing to report or pay workers’ comp premiums. His business goes under the name Chava Paving.

The prosecution stems from a Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) investigation and multiple encounters between Rodriguez and L&I construction compliance inspectors.

Ridgefield consumer paid $33,000

The charges cover at least seven jobs Rodriguez’s company performed or agreed to perform from September 2012 through June 2014. In several of the jobs, consumers told L&I that Chava Paving did shoddy work or never finished, but Rodriguez refused to provide refunds or complete the jobs.

In one instance last June, a Ridgefield, WA property owner paid $33,000 in advance for the company to build a retaining wall and parking pad, and spread gravel on a road. The owner said that after five days on the job, the crew’s work was so poor and incomplete that he cancelled the contract. Rodriguez wouldn’t repay any of the money, which the property owner had paid in checks written to Salvador’s 17-year-old son, court documents said.

L&I recommends that consumers never pay contractors in full until the job is completed to their satisfaction.

Along with leaving unsatisfied customers, L&I found that Rodriguez wasn’t paying workers’ compensation for his employees. He employed three to 10 workers, depending on the job, without paying workers’ comp. In one case, at a Vancouver, WA mobile home park in July 2013, one worker even filed a wage complaint, contending that he was never paid; L&I retrieved the back pay for the employee.

Admits working without license

During an October 2013 interview with L&I staff, court documents said, Rodriguez admitted he and his workers were performing paving jobs without a contractor’s license or workers’ compensation account. He said he had to keep working to pay his bills.

Rodriguez originally registered Chava Paving in 2005. L&I suspended his contractor registration in May 2009 when his insurance and bond were cancelled, and revoked his workers’ comp coverage in October 2010 for failing to pay premiums. Since 2009, L&I inspectors have issued Rodriguez a dozen civil citations for unregistered contracting; none has been paid.

Check out prospective contractors

State law requires construction contractors to register with L&I. To register, contractors must have liability insurance, a business license and a bond to allow for some financial recourse if the project goes awry. Consumers can check whether a contractor is registered by going to www.Verify.Lni.wa.gov or calling 1-888-811-5974.

Photo credit: Steve Snodgrass / Foter / CC BY

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Friday, January 2, 2015

Communicating Uncertainty — Ebola, Public Health, and the Scientific Process

The Ebola epidemic highlights the need to balance: uncertainty, fear and risk, in such a manner that health care workers can continue to perform their services. Today's post is shared from nejm.org/

The levees of the Red River in Grand Forks, North Dakota, are built to withstand 51-ft water levels. In 1997, the National Weather Service predicted a flood, but despite a 35% margin of error for previous estimates, it emphasized that the river would crest at 49 ft at most. When the waters rose to 54 ft, wreaking havoc on the area, local inhabitants were shocked and angry. Why had forecasters projected such confidence in their prediction? According to Nate Silver, who describes the incident in The Signal and the Noise, “The forecasters later told researchers that they were afraid the public might lose confidence in the forecast if they had conveyed any uncertainty in the outlook.”1

In hindsight, it's easy to criticize the forecasters. Not only were they wrong, but their unwillingness to admit to uncertainty had grave consequences. Silver suggests that the flood was largely preventable: sandbags could have augmented the levees, and water could have been diverted from populated areas. Looking back, it's hard to see any downside to admitting that the prediction could be off by 9 ft either way. But forecasters faced a trade-off: communicating uncertainty often undermines perceived expertise, but if you don't communicate uncertainty and end up being wrong, you risk losing even more credibility. Management of the Ebola “crisis” in the United States has crystallized this dilemma.

Click here to read the complete article, "Communicating Uncertainty — Ebola, Public Health, and the Scientific Process," by Lisa Rosenbaum, M.D., N Engl J Med 2015; 372:7-9 January 1, 2015DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1413816

Monday, December 29, 2014

In North Dakota, a Tale of Oil, Corruption and Death

Today's post is shared from nytimes.com/
Tex G. Hall, the three-term tribal chairman on this remote, once impoverished reservation, was the very picture of confidence as he strode to the lectern at his third Annual Bakken Oil and Gas Expo and gazed out over a stuffed, backlit mountain lion.
Tall and imposing beneath his black cowboy hat, he faced an audience of political and industry leaders lured from far and wide to the “Texpo,” as some here called it. It was late April at the 4 Bears Casino, and the outsiders endorsed his strong advocacy for oil development and the way he framed it as mutually beneficial for the industry and the reservation: “sovereignty by the barrel.”
“M.H.A. Nation is No. 1 for tribal oil produced on American soil in the United States right now currently today,” Mr. Hall proudly declared, referring to the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation.
But, in a hall decorated with rigs and tepees, a dice throw from the slot machines, Mr. Hall’s self-assurance belied the fact that his grip on power was slipping. After six years of dizzyingly rapid oil development, anxiety about the environmental and social costs of the boom, as well as about tribal mismanagement and oil-related corruption, had burst to the surface.
By that point, there were two murder cases — one person dead in Spokane, Wash., the other missing but presumed dead in North Dakota — tied to oil business on the reservation. And Mr. Hall, a...

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Sunday, December 28, 2014

Zadroga fund payouts to 9/11 responders gain speed as claims process gets 'better'

Today's post is shared from newsday.com/
Nell McCarthy, the deputy special master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, pointed to two boxes. One contained files about 2 inches thick; the other, a file about 2 feet thick.
That, she said in the fund's nondescript Washington, D.C., offices, showed the range of differences among claims filed by 9/11 responders.
The thinner file was submitted online by a former first responder in law enforcement who had hired an experienced lawyer. The second was filed by a former deliveryman for a restaurant -- with no attorney -- and included entire notebooks containing handwritten statements in nearly indecipherable block printing that often spilled over and encircled the pages.
Both received compensation, McCarthy said. But the first -- who recently died of brain cancer -- was a fairly straightforward case and it took eight months to determine his compensation. The second -- who for a time called the VCF help line every day, even on the weekends -- was not so straightforward. That claim took 2½ years to resolve.
"I am really proud of the work we did with him," McCarthy said of the second claimant, who still calls the VCF.
McCarthy -- a former White House staffer who herself was a block from Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001 -- was hired in April to help expedite claims for ailing responders under the $2.775 billion James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010. The VCF had come under heavy criticism for the...
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Gov. Chris Christie and NJ Workers' Compensation: Declining Approval

What has NJ Gov. Chris Christie done for Workers' Compensation? It appears that he has done little to nothing except, complain it needs reform.

NJ continues with high unemployment, a failing infrastructure, steep taxes, a mass migration of both Industry and Labor out-of-the state, high debt, and declining public pension reserves. The State continues with a spiraling rate of income inequality that reflects high and almost unobtainable maximum workers' compensation rates for the vast majority of low and middle income wage earners.

The State's antiquated workers' compensation system continues with a reverse social security offset that favors insurance companies to the detriment of the nation's taxpayers. NJ administratively refuses to allow COLA increases under the Triennial Redetermination Social Security program to those totally disabled workers who receive benefits and NJ continues to allow insurance companies and employers to reap benefits at the detriment of injured employers. NJ still maintains an antiquate, objectionable, obsolescent and costly Second Injury Fund for pre-existing injuries when the vast majority of states have terminated such programs.

Additionally, NJ, that lacks a medical provider fee schedule, continues to control medical treatment by requiring injured workers to obtain only employer authorized medical care and prohibits injured workers freedom to choose their own medical providers.

Unproductive bullying of the public at the NJ Governor's "town hall meetings" has become a trademark of his administration. The excitement and approval of "the entertainment value" of those events in the past caught the attention of the public at the emergence of his administration and allowed him to gain popularity. That has now faded has Governor Christie's public approval, according to recent polls in NJ, is declining.

In the meantime, Gov. Christie criticizes NJ workers' compensation and lacks an announced plan to correct the ailing system.

“'We’re going to be coming up with a package of proposals that’s going to work both sides of that,' Christie told a caller on his monthly NJ 101.5 FM radio show tonight.

'The employers who may not be stepping up and meeting their obligations and also the employees who are committing fraud on the worker’s comp system,' he said."

NJ Gov. Christie, April 2013

Today's post is shared from nytimes.com/

When the Chris Christie-for-president chatter first started, in 2011, voters in his home state of New Jersey took pride in having a celebrity governor. As Nancy Reagan escorted Mr. Christie to his speech at her husband’s presidential library, and hedge fund billionaires, The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages urged him to run, his approval ratings jumped. Voters told pollsters the national attention made him more effective, and improved their state’s long-maligned image.

Four years later, with Governor Christie again considering a run for president, his constituents appear to be tiring of the whole routine.

Polls taken over the last three months reveal a list of home-state complaints: Mr. Christie’s favorability is at its lowest point, with more voters disapproving than approving of his job performance. New Jersey residents think he is making decisions with an eye on his national standing rather than on what is good for their state. They do not think he should run for president — they are, as the slogan goes, ready for Hillary — but most expect he will, and want him to resign if he does. Political talk in New Jersey centers less on Mr. Christie running for president and more on which one of three Democrats quietly seeking to succeed him will win — even though that election is three years away.

Click here to read the entire NY Times article.

New York State Department of Health Completes Review of High-volume Hydraulic Fracturing

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Overtime bonanza at Port Authority; 13 officers set to make more than agency’s director

Wages in workers' compensation determine the rat of workers' compensation payments. Today's post is shared from northjersey.com/

Three years after New York State issued a scathing report criticizing what it characterized as excessive overtime at the Port Authority, 131 of the agency’s employees worked so much overtime in the first nine months of this year that they already more than doubled their annual base salaries.
Thirteen agency police officers received more in salary, overtime and other payments in that period than did Executive Director Patrick Foye, whose annual salary is $289,000.

Most of the top overtime earners are police officers, including one who has been averaging an estimated 100 hours of work a week this year, including 60 hours of overtime. That is the equivalent of working more than 14 hours a day, seven days a week. The top 10 overtime earners are averaging an estimated 46 extra hours each week, a workload that experts say raises questions about efficiency and public safety, and is quite high even in a profession where significant overtime is routine.
The legislatures in both New Jersey and New York have passed identical bills that call for sweeping changes in the way the agency operates, but neither Governor Christie nor New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has indicated whether he will sign the legislation.
Cuomo faces a critical deadline: He must decide by Saturday. Christie must decide by mid-January. Both states...

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Christie, Cuomo veto N.J.-N.Y. Port Authority overhaul

Today's post os shared from northjersey.com
The governors of New Jersey and New York late Saturday vetoed legislation passed unanimously by each state's legislature to overhaul the operations of the Port Authority, and instead endorsed their own plan to revamp the troubled bistate agency.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, had until Saturday to take action on the legislation, which needed the signature of each state's governor.
About 6 p.m., Cuomo and Gov. Christie, a Republican, jointly released and endorsed a 103-page report compiled by a special panel the governors convened in May in the aftermath of the George Washington Bridge scandal, which laid bare cross-Hudson rivalries among leaders of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Christie and Cuomo proposed changes to the authority's governance structure and recommended modernizing its commerce facilities, among other ideas.
Their actions were immediately criticized by New Jersey lawmakers who said the vetoes wrongly delayed an overhaul of an agency that has come under penetrating scrutiny since January, when documents surfaced linking two former Christie allies to the lane closures at the center of the bridge scandal.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark is investigating the September 2013 lane closures, which snarled traffic...

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Twenty states will raise their minimum wage on Jan. 1

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

The minimum wage will rise in 20 states and the District of Columbia on Thursday, as laws and automatic adjustments are made with the start of the new year.
In nine states, the hike will be automatic, an adjustment made to keep the minimum wage in line with rising inflation. But in 11 states and D.C., the rise is the result of legislative action or voter-approved referenda, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Two more states — Delaware and Minnesota — will get legislatively driven hikes later in the year. Twenty-nine states will have minimum wages above the federal minimum of $7.25.
The size of the hikes range from 12 cents in Florida to $1.25 in South Dakota. Among those states hiking the minimum wage, Washington state’s will be highest at $9.47. Oregon’s is next at $9.25., followed by Vermont and Connecticut at $9.15. Massachusetts and Rhode Island will have $9 minimum wages.
Of the states where the minimum wage is rising due to legislative or voter action, five — Alaska, Michigan, Minnesota, South Dakota, Vermont — and D.C. will also newly implement inflation indexing, bringing the number of states that tie future minimum wage hikes to inflation to 15.
The minimum wage hikes will have a direct impact for nearly 2.3 million workers who currently earn less per hour than the new minimum wage. EPI estimates that an additional roughly 900,000 people would be affected indirectly, as...

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U.S. Alerts Public to Guardrails That Plaintiffs Say Turn Into Spears on Impact

Today's post is shared from Bloomberg,com/

A U.S. highway regulator opened an Internet portal this week allowing the public to report accidents tied to a Trinity Industries Inc. (TRN) guardrail system, which has been linked by lawsuits to at least eight deaths.

The Federal Highway Administration’s move is the latest sign of intensifying government scrutiny of Trinity and its shock-absorbing guardrail end-terminal, the ET-Plus. Drivers and their families have claimed that the system can seize up on impact, spearing cars instead of giving way as intended.

Earlier this month, the highway agency told U.S. lawmakers it would consider mandating additional crash tests on the system if it finds the current round, which started Dec. 10, isn’t sufficient. One of those lawmakers, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, said he plans to press Trinity in the new year for accountability over undocumented changes it may have made to the ET-Plus.

Blumenthal, a Democrat, has joined the FHWA in asking whether Dallas-based Trinity quietly adjusted the dimensions of its system. Such a revision would represent the third version of the end-terminal since Trinity introduced it in 2000. The company admitted once already to changing the ET-Plus in 2005 and not telling the agency. It has denied allegations in lawsuits that the modified, second version poses an unnecessary danger to crashing...

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Read more about Guardrail Safety fro the Federal Highway Administration:

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Fracking: NY State Report Reveals Significant Health Uncertainties

"As with most complex human activities in modern societies, absolute scientific certainty

regarding the relative contributions of positive and negative impacts of HVHF* on public

health is unlikely to ever be attained. In this instance, however, the overall weight of the

evidence from the cumulative body of information contained in this Public Health

Review demonstrates that there are significant uncertainties about the kinds of adverse

health outcomes that may be associated with HVHF, the likelihood of the occurrence of

adverse health outcomes, and the effectiveness of some of the mitigation measures in

reducing or preventing environmental impacts which could adversely affect public

health. Until the science provides sufficient information to determine the level of risk to

public health from HVHF to all New Yorkers and whether the risks can be adequately

managed, DOH recommends that HVHF should not proceed in New York State."
*high volume hydraulic fracturing

Click here to read the entire report.

Friday, December 26, 2014

Coal ash is not hazardous waste under U.S. agency rules

Today's post is shared from http://planetark.org/

In a disappointment to environmentalists, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued rules on Friday labeling coal ash, a byproduct of coal-based power production containing toxic materials such as arsenic and lead, as non-hazardous waste.

The label means that states and environmental groups taking legal action, and not the EPA, will be the primary enforcers of the first-ever federal rules targeting coal ash, which will require the closure of some coal ash holding ponds leaking contaminants into surrounding water but will not cover others.

Also critical of the new rules were some Republican lawmakers, who said they will prove harmful to the economy.

"This rule is a huge step forward in our effort to protect communities from coal ash storage impoundment failures as well as the improper management and disposal of coal ash in general," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told reporters.

The agency first proposed rules governing coal ash storage in 2010, in the wake of a massive spill at a ruptured holding pond in Tennessee that has cost more than $1 billion to clean up. The process took on renewed urgency with another large-scale breach at a pond in North Carolina in February.

Environmental groups expressed disappointment with the long-anticipated rules, which do not require the phase-out of all the hundreds of existing holding ponds and do not prohibit new coal ash from being disposed of in them.

Click here to read the complete article.

….

Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900 jon@gelmans.com have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

Ebola Doctor Makes Tough Choice To Save The Lives Of Two Colleagues

Co-workers sometimes face difficult decisions. This was one of them. Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from kaiserhealthnews.org

Dr. Lance Plyler prayed. He had a choice to make. Two colleagues at a hospital in Liberia, Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, were battling the deadly Ebola virus. The air ambulance had turned back with a mechanical problem, and Plyler feared they wouldn't survive much longer. Against the odds, the medical missionary from North Carolina had managed to find some of the last available supplies of a promising new drug, ZMapp, in neighboring Sierra Leone.

A Styrofoam box containing three frozen vials of straw-colored fluid was flown to the border, canoed across a river and put on a plane to Monrovia, the Liberian capital. But there was enough to treat only one person. The developers were insistent: It would take all three doses to knock out the virus. "Whatever you do," they told him, "don't split the course." (Alexandra Zavis, 12/23)

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Thursday, December 25, 2014

Ebola Sample Is Mishandled at C.D.C. Lab in Latest Error

Today's post is shared from nytimes.com/

A laboratory mistake at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta may have exposed a technician to the deadly Ebola virus, federal officials said on Wednesday. The technician will be monitored for signs of infection for 21 days, the incubation period of the disease.
Word of the accident provoked concern and disbelief from some safety experts. Dangerous samples of anthrax and flu were similarly mishandled at the C.D.C. just months ago, eroding confidence in an agency that has long been one of the most respected research centers in the world.
Other employees who entered the lab where the mistake occurred were being examined for possible exposure. There are fewer than a dozen, and so far it appears that none were infected, said Thomas Skinner, a C.D.C. spokesman.
The samples were properly contained and never left the C.D.C. campus, so there is no risk to the public, officials said.
The error occurred on Monday, when a high-security lab, working with Ebola virus from the epidemic in West Africa, sent samples that should have contained killed virus to another C.D.C. laboratory, down the hall.
But the first lab sent the wrong samples — ones that may have contained the live virus. The second lab was not equipped to handle live Ebola. The technician there who worked with the samples wore gloves and a gown, but no face shield, and may have been exposed.
The mixup was discovered on Tuesday, Dr. Stuart Nichol, chief of the C.D.C.’s Viral Special Pathogens...

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