Copyright
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Congressional Deficit Reform May Incorporate Workers Compensation Awards
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
County Building Set for Demolition Contains Asbestos
Todays post is shared from emissourian.com An asbestos review on a county-owned building that will be torn down found some of the substance in the structure. The building, which is just south of the Franklin County Government Center in Union, will be torn down to create more county employee parking. The goal is to keep county employees from parking on the street in downtown Union, where there is said to be a parking shortage. Keeping the county employees from parking on the street will open up more parking for the public and patrons of downtown businesses, First District County Commissioner Tim Brinker noted. He did not know how many employees are parking on the street in downtown Union, but he said there are “quite a few.” Brinker said this week that asbestos has been found in some of the caulking around a door. Cochran Engineering of Union, which did the asbestos and lead survey on the building, recommended that the contractor chosen for the demolition include in its work proper disposal of the asbestos. The county commission may vote next week to seek bids on the demolition of the building, which resembles a Quonset hut. Lung cancer has been associated with asbestos exposure, according to the EPA. Brinker said tearing down the building also honors an agreement that was made between the city of Union and a prior commission. The current county commission has to fulfill the agreement since it was not done before, he said. The agreement involved the city of Union vacating a street so the county could... |
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Friday, May 29, 2009
Opposition Mounts to a National Study Commission
“This is a typical Washington D.C. approach: appoint a commission, give it a big budget and create a big new bureaucracy,” said PIA National Government Affairs Committee Chairman Johnny Lee. “The fact is, none of this is necessary. Workers’ compensation programs are regulated by the states, not the federal government. The federal government should not seek to interfere in a state-based and state-regulated system. This is a waste of time and taxpayers dollars.”
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Workplace Violence: Workers Compensation Judge Removed For Taking a Gun To Work
I once walked into a workers' compensation court and the Judge was using a 3 foot sledge hammer as a gavel. How far a field one can go before crossing the line of what is appropriate conduct for a judge was the subject of a recent court decision.
A Court in Pennsylvania has ruled that it is unlawful for a workers' compensation judge to bring a gun to work. The judge was removed from office and terminated.
Click here to read: Peter E. Perry v. State Civil Service Commission, No. 2751 C.D. 2010 (PA 2011)
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- The Top 10 Workers' Compensation Blog Posts for 2011 (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
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- Contagion in The Workplace: Ready or Not (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Governor Murphy Signs Legislation to Dramatically Reform New Jersey's Medical Marijuana Program, Expand Patient Access
Saturday, September 23, 2023
Workers’ Compensation Benefits for Occupational Exposure to Cellphone Radiation
Last week, the French government requested that Apple stop selling the iPhone 12 model because of excessive radiation detected during recent tests. The Agence National des Fréquences [ANFR] stated that “…Apple must immediately take all measures to prevent the availability on the market of the phones concerned present in the supply chain. Regarding phones already sold, Apple must take corrective measures as soon as possible to make the phones concerned compliant. Otherwise, it will be up to Apple to recall them.”
Monday, February 22, 2021
Cannabis Legislation Enacted in NJ
Friday, May 2, 2008
Diagnosing and Curing the Ailing NJ Workers' Compensation System
The State has a history of being a heavily industrialized state with a huge legacy of pollution from asbestos to petrochemical. Dr. Irving J. Selikoff, of Paterson, NJ, began his landmark studies on asbestos workers in New Jersey. In 1911, almost a century ago, NJ adopted an administrative system known as workers' compensation and it was the intent of the Legislature to provide a speedy and cost effective system of delivering statutorily defined benefits to injured workers while passing the costs onto the consumers of products and services.
This will be the first major evaluation of the workers’ compensation system in 30 years. The last one resulted in a fraud report from the NJ State Commission of Investigation and subsequent statutory change.
Much has changed from the past. In 1911 modern medicine was unknown and so were the diseases that it now treats. The program’s benefits were meager and the conditions eligible for compensation were few and far between. More Americans have died from occupational disease in the United States of America in the past 40 years than in all wars dating back to 1776. Hearings on S.79 before the Subcomm. of Labor and Human Resources of the Senate Comm. on Labor and Human Resources, 100th Cong. 1st Session, S.Hrg. 100-56, pt. 1, at page 1 (1987). Collateral benefit programs did not exist: major medical insurance, long term disability, social security and pension programs.
We are experiencing a struggling economy today. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich stated, “Fifty years ago, when over a third of the American workforce was unionized and most big industries were oligopolies, it was fairly easy for unionized workers to get higher wages and benefits without putting any individual company at a competitive disadvantage. The higher wages and benefits were merely passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices or came out of profits that would otherwise go to investors. Today, though, most companies are in fierce competition because new technologies combined with globalization have destroyed the old oligopolies and allowed many new entrants.”
Today the workers’ compensation process is confronted with the complexity of the causal relationship of new diseases to synergistic occupational exposures to complex substances as well as traumatic events. Multiple bureaucratic benefits programs that are not formally connected burden the system with claims and liens. Revenue is limited by fewer manufacturing facilities and it is more costly to provide medical treatment and pharmaceutical protocols that result in miraculous recoveries as well as serious and fatal unfortunate results. Benefits must be paid out longer since the average person has a greater life expectancy, ie 1911 – 50 yrs of age and 2007 – 78 years of age.
As in medicine, one must look at both subjective complaints and objective findings to guide its evaluation of the workers’ compensation system. One can hear the cry’s of injured workers “Waiting in Pain,” and of the injured workers and the families of those who did not survive the compensation system. Stories of frustration and outrage are reported in the press. Testimony to the NJ Senate will come from the stakeholders who have economic interests in the system and those who are organized representatives of those who are unable to speak any longer. Those voices must be heard and evaluated. It is important to heed to words and wisdom of all and evaluate them in the context of self-motivation.
The compensation system has been portrayed as, “a dead elephant in the room,” and one that fails to carry out the legislative intent of 1911. Professor Emeritus, John F. Burton, Jr., of Rutgers University of the School of Management and Labor Relations, describes the NJ system as, "It's kind of a sleepy system…” that is “…not particularly worker-friendly."
Unlike The Constitution, the workers' compensation act deals not in the theoretical and vague general concepts of Democracy. The compensation act is a document, which within its four comers, speaks with certainty, specifics and details.
The program has failed because under the present system the Legislative intent cannot be carried out. One cannot drive a 1911 model car on the NJ Turnpike today. Workers' Compensation should be viewed in that context, and not as a cash cow for any interest parties.
The Act can no longer provide medical treatment in an efficient and effective manner consistent with the legislative intent to provide social remedial benefits through a liberal and summary social insurance program. Medical coverage has become acute in NJ and in other jurisdictions. Almost a majority of workers will soon be uninsured for major medical coverage. NJ should take the initiative, as other states have, to provide for universal health care. NJ should combine workers' compensation medical coverage with a universal employer based medical care program and have a single payer system. A single payer system will be cost effective, efficient and provide more appropriate delivery of medical care.
The workers' compensation system began in 1911 with the noble mission as a social remedial system providing an efficient and certain system of benefits to injured workers. Today, the system struggles to protect employees as the rapidly evolving landscape is demanding increased attention to reconsideration of an IHC system in light of the consequences of the program's costs and the consequences of being uninsured for healthcare benefits. The participants in the current program, including employees and employers , will require a more balanced and certain medical delivery system. The lack of healthcare coverage takes an enormous toll on the uninsured, which results in avoidable deaths each year, poorly managed chronic conditions, undetected or under treated cancer and untried life-saving medical procedures. An Integrated Health Care plan is a potential national shift to reduce costs so that a healthcare safety net can be maintained for workers and their families.
“Full-time healthcare would save money. Instead of paying for two insurance plans – one to cover healthcare for injuries and illnesses on the job and another for injuries and illness off the job – businesses would buy one plan. As Roger Thompson, former director of Travelers Insurance Workers’ Compensation Strategic Business Unit put it, the present system is ‘like having two trains going down separate tracks and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have all the administrative costs to maintain these separate systems.’” R. McGarrah, “Full-time Healthcare for America’s Working Families [Draft],” AFL-CIO (August 22, 2003).
In the short run, adopting such concepts, proposed by Senator Stephen M. Sweeney and Assemblyman Neil M. Cohen, would be fine initial steps:
- prohibiting the future raiding of revenue on designated workers' compensation funds (CSR-60) should be enacted;
- swifter scheduling and use of continuous trials;
- greater permanent, temporary rate and dependency [A-2499], benefits;
- rate increases [A-2498] should be enacted;
- a review of judicial appointments as recommenced in the 1974 by the State Commission of Investigation report;
- an enhanced in-service judicial training curriculum;
- exclusive jurisdiction of the Division of Workers compensation over medical fee disputes [A-2501];
- a less burdensome Uninsured Employer Fund system to shift the responsibility to the State to locate and serve responsible parties and in the alternative to carryout the mandate of the Legislature to make payment to uninsured workers and asbestos victims expeditiously and even more swiftly in exigent cases;
- an independent oversight commission [A-2503] should continuously evaluate the status and progress of this system that handles trust funds and benefits valued at over $1.8 Billion dollars per year; and
- Data Match with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to comply quickly with the Medicare Secondary Payer Act which was enacted decades ago.
By evaluating the health of the compensation system thorough an intensive analysis of both the objective findings and subjective complaints, the NJ Senate will have the opportunity to enact modern, creative and innovative solutions that will be able meet the present needs of the workers, the employers and taxpayers of State. The NJ Legislature has the opportunity to craft an up-to-date system that will cure the ailing and antiquated workers’ compensation system and embrace today’s needs and tomorrow’s future and bring the State into a new century.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Unpaid Intern? You Probably Aren't Protected Against Sexual Harassment
Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com
In 1994, Bridget O'Connor began an internship at Rockland Psychiatric Center, where one of the doctors allegedly began to refer to her as Miss Sexual Harassment, told her that she should participate in an orgy, and suggested that she remove her clothing before meeting with him. Other women in the office made similar claims.
Yet when O'Connor filed a lawsuit, her sexual harassment claims were dismissed because she was an unpaid intern. A federal appeals court affirmed the decision to throw out the claim.
Unpaid interns miss out on wages and employment benefits, but they can also find themselves in "legal limbo" when it comes to civil rights, according to law professor and intern labor rights advocate David Yamada. The O'Connor decision (the leading ruling on the matter, according to Yamada) held that because they don't get a paycheck, unpaid interns are not "employees" under the Civil Rights Act—and thus, they're not protected.
Federal policies echo court rulings. The laws enforced by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, including the Civil Rights Act, don't cover interns unless they receive "significant remuneration," according to commission spokesperson Joseph Olivares.
"At least with respect to the federal law that we enforce, an unpaid intern would not be legally protected by our laws prohibiting sexual harassment," Olivares said in an email to ProPublica.
It's unclear how many interns are sexually harassed at work....
Thursday, December 20, 2012
SeaWorld Safety Investigation Expanded by OSHA
The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has filed a petition against SeaWorld of Florida LLC to comply with administrative subpoenas that require SeaWorld to provide three managers to be interviewed during OSHA's follow-up abatement inspection. SeaWorld has declined to provide personnel to answer questions regarding abatement or correction of a prior violation related to trainers' exposure to struck-by and drowning hazards when engaged in performances with killer whales.
"The employee testimony for the follow-up abatement inspection, required by a subpoena, allows OSHA inspectors to determine if SeaWorld employees continue to be exposed to unsafe and unhealthy working conditions," said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels. "Abating safety and health hazards in the workplace needs to be as important to an employer as recognizing the hazards in the first place."
The follow-up inspection is being conducted as a result of previous violations that OSHA identified after a February 2010 drowning of a trainer who was grabbed and pulled under the water by a six-ton killer whale during what SeaWorld described as a "relationship session." In August 2010, OSHA issued SeaWorld citations related to the incident. SeaWorld contested OSHA's proposed violations and penalties.
A trial was held by the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, and in June an administrative law judge upheld OSHA's citations against SeaWorld. Subsequently, SeaWorld was required to abate cited hazards, including those specifically related to trainers working in proximity to the killer whales. However, since the order went into effect, SeaWorld has filed a petition with the review commission seeking additional time to abate the violation regarding trainers' interaction with killer whales. SeaWorld maintains that the petition, which is pending resolution, should restrict the scope of OSHA's follow-up inspection.
The enforcement action has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle of Florida, Orlando Division by the department's Atlanta Regional Solicitor's Office.
Read more about "SeaWorld" and safety issues:
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Tuesday, September 28, 2021
NJ Appellate Division Rules That The City of Newark Can Implement Its Vaccine Mandate
The NJ Appellate Division held that the Mayor of the City of Newark has the authority, as a managerial prerogative, to mandate that all City employees be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Nine unions representing City employees filed unfair labor practice charges against the City with the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC). The unions had requested an injunction to prevent implementing the mandate before the City negotiated with the unions. A Director of PERC issued an order granting in part and denying the unions' request for preliminary injunctive relief.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The Workers' Compensation Beauty Pageant
Workers' compensation is social, remedial legislation. It is supposed to be a summary proceeding that delivers benefits expeditiously and efficiently to injured workers. The promise made in 1911 was a system removed of fault, contributory negligence and assumption of the risk. Society has reneged on that agreement and now apportions and allocates disability on pre-existing conditions, prior functional credits and individual habits of workers. Ironically, it is Industry itself that markets items that results in obesity, smoking addiction and many other allegedly non-compensable factors.
The quality of a system is not only factored on rate of benefits, cost of insurance and lost time frequency. It is a system that should be evaluated on the human factors of injured workers' access to benefits and the time required to achieve the result. Justice delayed is indeed justice denied.
Yes, California, Alaska, New Jersey, New York and Montana may all share the bottom of the tank on the Risk and Insurance rating scale. However, horror stories are heard from Massachusetts (#1) concerning "opt-out programs," and in Nevada (#2) from OSHA, concerning the failure to abide by safety regulations. These dismal problems seem to be universal and embrace the entire program as it now exists.
Like the Miss America Pageant, it is time to take a good hard look at how the system presently functions and why it is not meeting expectations, both financial and socially. Congress should commission an undertaking to figure out how to put the workers back into workers' comp.
To read more about a Congressional Commission click here.
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Federal opioid limitations: Good intentions, bad outcomes
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Professor John F Burton Jr: Illinois Proposed Changes Are Obectionable
Professor John F. Burton Jr. |
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Uncertainty Continues to Dominate the California System
David DePaola |
"The unanswered question is how much was saved by denying unnecessary medical care," the WorkCompCentral story this morning queries, stating that Greg Johnson, director of medical analytics for WCIRB, said the WCIRB simply can't answer that question.
"Honestly, there's no way the WCIRB will ever be able to answer that question because it is not germane to IMR filings - we don't really know that IMR is denying unnecessary medical care. We only know that IMR is upholding Utilization Review denials, which may, or anecdotally more often than we admit, may not, be about appropriate care.
"As I mentioned before, the anecdotal evidence suggests that UR is being used too often for cost containment rather than directing care. And frankly the amount of time it takes to get through a couple of UR denials and appeals, and then IMR review, denial and appeal, is incentive enough not to push for any particular treatment request - it's easier just to go to a general health doctor to get treatment for an ailment of "unknown origin."
Click here to read the entire article.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
Congress Told Workers Compensation is a Deteriorating System
As Professor points out, the aging workforce further complicates the burden placed upon the nation's Medicare system. With the erosion of the doctrine that workers' compensation takes the worker as it finds him or her, medical treatment for pre-existing conditions will be a growing cost for Medicare and a cost-shift from the workers' compensation system. The NY Times reported that, "Nearly one-fourth of Medicare beneficiaries have five or more chronic conditions. They account for two-thirds of the program’s spending."
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Saturday, October 19, 2013
Labor Group Says Haiti's Factories Are Unsafe
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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Monday, April 27, 2015
The Circus: OSHA Settlement
9 employees injured in May 2014 fall in Providence, Rhode Island
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, will implement ongoing safety enhancements in aerial acts to protect employees against injuries like those sustained by its aerialists during a May 4, 2014, performance in Providence, Rhode Island. Feld Entertainment Inc., headquartered in Palmetto, Florida, owns the circus.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Every Year There Are Thousands of Holiday-Decorating Injuries
Until, that is, someone smelled the smoke. At first, we thought, the oven had been left on. Or maybe a neighbor had lit a fire? But then the scent started to take on a sour tinge. Like burning plastic? Or maybe—eek—lighter fluid? And then someone saw the smoke. It was wafting in toward the table. We weren't smelling something from outside. It all was coming from inside the house. The Christmas of 1994, in other words, was the Christmas the Garber family became a statistic: Our tree had caught fire. We are still not sure how. But it was probably, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission would say, because we had let our tree go under-watered. Or over-lighted. Or, even more possibly, overdone with reflective ornaments. Perhaps, on the other hand, we had simply situated it too close to a heat source. Regardless: Do not be like the Garbers! Heed the warnings of the CPSC, for your own safety, or at least that of your home! Each year, the Commission publishes, Cassandra-like, a nearly identical list of recommendations meant to help Americans... |
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