Workers' Compensation

Thursday, January 16, 2014

How the West Virginia Spill Exposes Our Lax Chemical Laws

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

Site of the spill on the Elk River in West Virginia Foo Connor/Flickr
The West Virginia chemical spill that left some 300,000 people without access to water has exposed a gaping hole in the country's chemical regulatory system, according to environmental experts.
Much the state remains under a drinking-water advisory after the spill last week into the Elk River near a water treatment facility. As much as 7,500 gallons of the chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, which is used in the washing of coal, leaked from a tank owned by a company called Freedom Industries.
A rush on bottled water ensued, leading to empty store shelves and emergency water delivery operations. According to news reports, 10 people were hospitalized following the leak, but none in serious condition.
The spill and ensuing drinking water shortage have drawn attention to a very lax system governing the use of chemicals, according to Richard Denison, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund who specializes in chemical regulation. "Here we have a situation where we suddenly have a spill of a chemical, and little or no information is available on that chemical," says Denison.

West Virginia store shelf.

The problem is not necessarily that 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or MCHM, is highly toxic. Rather, Denison says, the problem is that not a great deal about its toxicity is known. Denison has managed to track down a description of one 1990 study, conducted by manufacturer Eastman Chemical,...

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Deal reached on tobacco firm corrective statements

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

RICHMOND — The nation’s tobacco companies and the federal government have reached an agreement on publishing corrective statements that say the companies lied about the dangers of smoking and requires them to disclose smoking’s health effects, including the death on average of 1,200 people a day.
The agreement, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington, follows a 2012 ruling ordering the industry to pay for corrective statements in various advertisements. The judge in the case ordered the parties to meet to discuss how to implement the statements, including whether they would be put in inserts with cigarette packs and on Web sites, TV and newspaper ads.
The court must approve the agreement, and the parties are discussing whether retailers will be required to post large displays with the industry’s admissions.
The corrective statements are part of a case that the government brought in 1999 under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled in that case in 2006 that the nation’s largest cigarette makers concealed the dangers of smoking for decades. The companies involved in the case include Richmond-based Altria Group, owner of the biggest U.S. tobacco company, Philip Morris USA; No. 2 cigarette maker, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, owned by Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Reynolds American; and No. 3 cigarette maker Lorillard, based in Greensboro, N.C.
Under the agreement with the Justice Department,...

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Wednesday, January 15, 2014

'Bakers contract cancer from asbestos in old ovens': tv programme

There have been 38 cases of bakers contracting cancer from the asbestos contained in old ovens since 2000, according to the institute of asbestos victims IAS.

The figure, to be included on Tuesday evening in tv programme Zembla, follows Zembla's claims in last week's programme that the Bakkersland bakery group had problems with asbestos in three of its factories over the past two years and had to recall a consignment of bread.

Eugene Scholten, chief executive of Bakkersland, told RTL news last week there had never been direct contact between bread and the asbestos used as insulation in the company's ovens.
However, the IAS now says 38 bakers have told them they contracted cancer from asbestos. Zembla says this is as a result of working with old ovens in which asbestos is used as insulation.
Gert van der Laan, clinical specialist at the Netherlands centre for industrial sickness AMC, tells Tuesday's Zembla that the figure shows working with old ovens is dangerous. 'The bakers who contacted the IAS since 2000 have been working with asbestos for decades,' he tells the programme.

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Monday, January 13, 2014

U.S. workers’ comp industry revenues could decline

In a new report, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services predicts revenues for the U.S. workers’ compensation insurance industry could decline amid economic weakness and an unsettled labor market.
“We remain pessimistic about the near-term profitability prospects for the U.S. workers’ compensation market despite improved pricing in the past couple of years,” said S&P credit analyst Siddhartha Ghosh. “We base our cautious view of the industry on such factors as continuing high unemployment levels and economic uncertainty, potential adverse reserve development, higher health care costs, and emerging risks like the expiration of Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act in 2014 and significant uncertainty regarding the ACA.”
In its recent report, S&P explains that demand for workers’ compensation in the U.S. depends greatly on economic cycles with a strong correlation between premium growth for workers’ compensation insurance and the state of the labor market.
S&P cited unemployment and the GDP as affecting premium growth, noting that consumers remain worried, wages are virtually stagnant, unemployment remains high and the cost of living is rising.
Concerns about the on-and-off political gridlock in Washington, D.C., uncertainty about the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and the potential for higher interest rates remain foremost on the minds of many, according to S&P.
Reauthorization...

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British Revised guidance on managing and controlling asbestos

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has revised guidance to help businesses understand how to work safely with asbestos.
The Approved Codes of Practice (ACOPs) L127 (The management of asbestos in non-domestic premises) and L143 (Work with materials containing asbestos) have been consolidated into one single revised ACOP – L143 Managing and working with asbestos.
L143 has been revised to make it easier for businesses and employers to understand and meet their legal obligations. It also reflects the changes introduced in The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 (CAR 2012) on the notification of non-licensed work with asbestos, and consequent arrangements for employee medical examinations and record keeping.
Highlighting the benefits of the change, Kären Clayton, Director of HSE’s Long Latency Health Risks Division, said: “The two ACOPs have been updated and brought together to help employers find the information they need quickly and easily and understand how to protect their workers from dangers of working with asbestos. The revised ACOP also provides better clarity on identifying dutyholders for non-domestic premises and the things they must do to comply with the ‘duty to manage’ asbestos.
ACOPs L127 and L143 were among several identified for: review and revision; consolidation; or withdrawal, following a recommendation made by Professor Ragnar Löfstedt in his report ‘Reclaiming Health and Safety for All’.
...

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Spoliation of Evidence: Sanctions Reversed in Employer Fraud Case

Where an employer was unable to retrieve unfamiliar accounting records because his computer was “totally broke down,” and he tossed it out, a NJ Appellate Court overruled the Trial Court’s imposed discovery sanctions.

The case involved a claim brought by both, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company [LM] and the State of New Jersey [NJ], against an employer, and their accountant. At the employer’s request his acceptant allegedly maintained two sets of payroll records.

One set was the “big payroll roll,” [between $2 and $3 million], and the other set was labeled the “small payroll [$5000,000.]” The employer was charged with fraudulently paying premiums for workers’ compensation based upon the small payroll.

An audit by LM of the employer’s payroll records, initiated after an anonymous telephone call, revealed the discrepancy that eventually resulted in charges being brought by the NJ State Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor.

During the discovery phase of the case, the employer was unable to timely produce QuickBooks accounting records from his computer. The resulting discovery sanctions were imposed. They resulted in a cascading series of legal determinations resting in a judgment against the employer.

The Appellate Court held that the discovery sanction were too harsh. It reversed and remand the case for further proceedings.

Liberty Mutual Insurance Company v. Viking Industrial Security, Inc., 2014 WL 51615 (N.J. Super. A.D.) Decided January 9, 2014

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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). 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.

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Sunday, January 12, 2014

No Jobs, No Benefits, and Lousy Pay

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

There is nothing good to say about the December employment report, which showed that only 74,000 jobs were added last month. But dismal as it was, the report came at an opportune political moment. The new numbers rebut the Republican arguments that jobless benefits need not be renewed, and that the current minimum wage is adequate. At the same time, they underscore the need, only recently raised to the top of the political agenda, to combat poverty and inequality.

The report showed that average monthly job growth in 2013 was 182,000, basically unchanged from 2012. Even the decline in the jobless rate last month, from 7 percent in November to 6.7 percent, was a sign of weakness: It mainly reflects a shrinking labor force — not new hiring — as the share of workers employed or looking for work fell to the lowest level since 1978. That’s a tragic waste of human capital. It would be comforting to ascribe the dwindling labor force mainly to retirements or other long-term changes, but most of the decline is due to weak job opportunities and weak labor demand since the Great Recession.

One result is that the share of jobless workers who have been unemployed for six months or longer has remained stubbornly high. In December, it was nearly 38 percent, still higher by far than at any time before the Great Recession, in records going back to 1948.

And yet, nearly 1.3 million of those long-term unemployed had their federal jobless benefits abruptly cut off at the end...

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