Workers' Compensation

Saturday, December 20, 2014

TRIA Non-Renewal: No Loss to Workers

Todays guest post is shared from workcompwire.com and is authored by Peter Rousmaniere.

The failure to renew the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) – first enacted in 2002, renewed in 2005 and 2007 – raises two questions: Who would have benefited from renewal, and who is harmed by non-renewal, with regards to workers’ compensation?

Workers did not benefit from TRIA. They may benefit from its non-renewal. For them, TRIA was useless.

For workers’ compensation insurers, TRIA simplified their management of risk and now they have to work harder. TRIA was, when you peel away the onion, about insurers taking care of their markets. Every other consideration appears to be secondary.

The impact of non-renewal on employers is ambiguous. Their risk management is now trickier, but they may come to see how poor a deal the federal backstop was for their employees.

TRIA mandated no expansion, clarification or revision of state workers’ compensation statutes, in coverage and process. After claim payers incurred a specified threshold of losses, the Federal Government was to begin to help fund further losses. (This is a very simplified but I think fair summary.)

Throughout the history of statute, including the legislative debates and published studies, few, if any, took the time to ask some fundamental questions:
What nature of conditions could arise from a terrorist attack?
Do workers’ compensation statutes cover these conditions?
For conditions that are covered, is there a reasonable chance that affected workers will obtain adequate benefits?

...

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Group gives US states middling marks on disease readiness

USA map

Today's post is shared from cidrap.umn.edu/

Citing the bumpy response to Ebola as an illustration, a public health advocacy group asserted today that many US states have a mediocre level of preparedness for infectious disease threats.

The nonprofit group Trust for America's Health (TFAH) said half the states met 5 or fewer of 10 key indicators of the ability to prevent, detect, diagnose, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks. The measures pertain to things like public health funding, childhood vaccination rates, healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), and reporting of HIV data.

The nation has achieved dramatic improvements in state and local capacity to respond to outbreaks and emergencies in the past decade, said TFAH Executive Director Jeffrey Levi, PhD, in a press release.

"But we also saw during the recent Ebola outbreak that some of the most basic infectious disease controls failed when tested," he added. "The Ebola outbreak is a reminder that we cannot afford to let our guard down.

Five states—Maryland, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia—tied for the top score by achieving 8 of 10 indicators, while Arkansas had the lowest score, at 2 of 10, according to the report.

Thirteen states achieved 6 of the 10 indicators, making the largest score group. Seven states achieved 7; nine states and Washington, DC, scored 5; eight states scored 4; and seven scored 3.
Key preparedness findings

TFAH highlighted scores on several of the key indicators in its press release.

On the positive...

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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.

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McDonald’s Is Charged With Punishing Workers

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

The National Labor Relations Board announced on Friday that its general counsel had brought 78 charges against McDonald’s and some of its franchise operators, accusing them of violating federal labor law in response to workers’ protests for higher wages around the country.

The general counsel’s move immediately drew outrage from a variety of national business groups because the labor action deemed McDonald’s a joint employer, a status that would make the fast-food titan equally responsible for actions taken at its franchised restaurants.

The labor board’s complaint asserts that McDonald’s and numerous franchise operators in more than a dozen cities illegally retaliated and made threats against workers who had joined national protests pushing for a base wage of $15 an hour in the nation’s fast-food restaurants.

Business groups vigorously attacked the general counsel’s complaint, saying that it was wrong to consider McDonald’s a joint employer and seek to hold it jointly responsible for the actions of its franchise operators. The labor board’s complaint, if successful, could disrupt many longtime practices in the fast-food industry — as well as other industries — and ease the path for unionizing fast-food restaurants nationwide.

Representatives of the United States Chamber of Commerce, the International Franchise Association, the National Restaurant Association and the National Retail Federation denounced...

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Workers Assail Night Lock-Ins By Wal-Mart

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

Looking back to that night, Michael Rodriguez still has trouble believing the situation he faced when he was stocking shelves on the overnight shift at the Sam's Club in Corpus Christi, Tex.

It was 3 a.m., Mr. Rodriguez recalled, some heavy machinery had just smashed into his ankle, and he had no idea how he would get to the hospital.

The Sam's Club, a Wal-Mart subsidiary, had locked its overnight workers in, as it always did, to keep robbers out and, as some managers say, to prevent employee theft. As usual, there was no manager with a key to let Mr. Rodriguez out. The fire exit, he said, was hardly an option -- management had drummed into the overnight workers that if they ever used that exit for anything but a fire, they would lose their jobs.

''My ankle was crushed,'' Mr. Rodriguez said, explaining he had been struck by an electronic cart driven by an employee moving stacks of merchandise. ''I was yelling and running around like a hurt dog that had been hit by a car. Another worker made some phone calls to reach a manager, and it took an hour for someone to get there and unlock the door.''

The reason for Mr. Rodriguez's delayed trip to the hospital was a little-known Wal-Mart policy: the lock-in. For more than 15 years, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, has locked in overnight employees at some of its Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores. It is a policy that many employees say has created disconcerting situations, such as when a worker in...
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Apple 'failing to protect Chinese factory workers'

Today's post is shared from bbc.com/

Poor treatment of workers in Chinese factories which make Apple products has been discovered by an undercover BBC Panorama investigation.

Filming on an iPhone 6 production line showed Apple's promises to protect workers were routinely broken.

It found standards on workers' hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were being breached at the Pegatron factories.

Apple said it strongly disagreed with the programme's conclusions.

Exhausted workers were filmed falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts at the Pegatron factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off.

Another reporter, whose longest shift was 16 hours, said: "Every time I got back to the dormitories, I wouldn't want to move.

"Even if I was hungry I wouldn't want to get up to eat. I just wanted to lie down and rest. I was unable to sleep at night because of the stress."

'Continuous improvement'

Apple declined to be interviewed for the programme, but said in a statement: "We are aware of no other company doing as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions.

"We work with suppliers to address shortfalls, and we see continuous and significant improvement, but we know our work is never done."

Apple said it...
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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.

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Friday, December 19, 2014

Guardrail Maker Trinity Industries Conducts More Tests for Malfunction

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.nytimes.com

Trinity Industries on Tuesday conducted the second of eight crash tests of a potentially dangerous guardrail system, as questions grew over whether some of the units being evaluated were different than those previously installed.
The testing in San Antonio, overseen by the Federal Highway Administration, continued Tuesday with a pickup driven squarely into one of the suspect guardrails, known as the ET-Plus, which is made by Trinity. Tony Furst, the federal agency’s associate administrator for safety, told reporters afterward that “there was nothing remarkable” about the results, which appeared to indicate the unit functioned normally.
Critics have said that crash tests should be done from an angle of about five degrees, instead of zero, which they say better represents the types of crashes in which the guardrail malfunctioned. Mr. Furst has said that the tests were instead intended to confirm results from 2005, and that further tests could come later.
Guardrail systems work by collapsing when hit from the front, absorbing the impact of the crash and pushing the metal rail away from the vehicle. Because of design changes introduced in 2005, but not reported to the federal government, Trinity’s ET-Plus can malfunction, sending the rail into a vehicle and potentially injuring occupants.
Other questions have been raised about the tests, including whether the guardrails have been modified a second time.
Joshua Harman, the federal whistle-blower who prevailed...

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Asbestos scare puts tiny O.C. school district on financial brink

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.latimes.com

Oak View Elementary School

A small Orange County school district that was forced for close campuses and bus students elsewhere in the wake of an asbestos scare is now reeling under a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall.

"You went from being a stable district to a district that's facing insolvency," Wendy Benkert, assistant superintendent for business services at the Orange County Department of Education, told trustees for Ocean View School District.

Benkert said the district has run through $2.9 million of $4.3 million in general fund emergency reserves and faces an additional $9.2 million in costs related to asbestos removal and a modernization project at 11 schools.

Should the Huntington Beach school district fail to close its $7.8-million shortfall, it might need emergency funding or could be taken over by the state, Benkert warned.

"But I believe with prudent decisions you can turn this around," she said.

Asbestos was detected in some classrooms during the modernization project that began in July. The cleanup has closed three schools and left many parents furious as they have watched their children — more than 1,600 in all — be temporarily bused to classes at eight schools in four districts.

As the crisis has unfolded, district officials have remained in close contact with the Orange County Department of Education, which has oversight responsibility.

Benkert proposed several options for school board...

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NHTSA Building Legal Case to Force Takata Air-Bag Recall

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.bloomberg.com

U.S. regulators investigating failures of Takata Corp. (7312) air bags are preparing for a legal fight in case the Japanese parts maker doesn’t comply with a request to expand a recall.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is working as quickly as possible to sort through tens of thousands of pages of documents from Takata, Honda Motor Co. (7267), and other automakers to build its case, David Friedman, the agency’s deputy administrator, said in an interview.
“This is a serious safety issue, and Takata needs to move forward,” Friedman said in a Dec. 12 interview. “If Takata fights us all the way to the end, I want to be able to walk into a courtroom with as close to a slam dunk as I can get.”
Takata rejected NHTSA’s request earlier this month for an expanded recall to replace drivers’ side air-bag inflators beyond about 8 million cars in high-humidity areas, where four motorists have died. The company says a recall is up to the automakers and even if it weren’t, regulators don’t have the safety data to support their decision.
NHTSA has cited data that shows humidity is less of factor than first thought in the malfunction risk for driver’s side air bags. NHTSA is hiring an independent expert to conduct more air-bag tests, Friedman said at a Dec. 3 Senate hearing.
In the interview, Friedman declined to commit to a timetable for the next step in the legal process to force a recall, which would be a...

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Medicare Cuts Payments To 721 Hospitals With Highest Rates Of Infections, Injuries

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

In its toughest crackdown yet on medical errors, the federal government is cutting payments to 721 hospitals for having high rates of infections and other patient injuries, records released Thursday show.
Medicare assessed these new penalties against some of the most renowned hospitals in the nation, including the Cleveland Clinic, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa.

infections hospital 570

One out of every seven hospitals in the nation will have their Medicare payments lowered by 1 percent over the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 and continues through September 2015. The health law mandates the reductions for the quarter of hospitals that Medicare assessed as having the highest rates of “hospital-acquired conditions,” or HACs. These conditions include infections from catheters, blood clots, bed sores and other complications that are considered avoidable.
The penalties, which are estimated to total $373 million, are falling particularly hard on academic medical centers: Roughly half of them will be punished, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis.
Dr. Eric Schneider, a Boston health researcher who has interviewed patient safety experts for his studies, said research has demonstrated that medical errors can be reduced through a number of techniques. But “there’s a pretty strong sense among the experts we talked to that they are not widely...

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Public Easily Swayed On Attitudes About Health Law, Poll Finds

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

Just days before the requirement for most large employers to provide health insurance takes effect, a new poll finds the public easily swayed over arguments for and against the policy.

Six in 10 respondents to the monthly tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation) said they generally favor the requirement that firms with more than 100 workers pay a fine if they do not offer workers coverage.

But minimal follow-up information can have a major effect on their viewpoint, the poll found.

For example, when people who support the “employer mandate” were told that employers might respond to the requirement by moving workers from full-time to part time, support dropped from 60 percent to 27 percent. And when people who disapprove of the policy were told that most large employers will not be affected because they already provide insurance, support surged to 76 percent.

Opinion also remains malleable about the requirement for most people to have health insurance – the so-called “individual mandate.”

It remains among the least popular aspects of the law – with just a 35 percent approval rating. But when people are told that the mandate doesn’t affect most Americans because they already have coverage through an employer, support jumps to 62 percent. Conversely, when supporters are told that the requirement means...
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Medicare penalizes 23 New Jersey hospitals over errors, infections

Hospital acquired infections (HAI) are a major problem and take a toll on injured workers and employers. The Federal Government in its expanding roll to provide better services at les cost is now enforcing HAI rules by imposing penalties. Today's post is shared from northjersey.com/

The federal government will reduce its Medicare payments to 23 hospitals in the state — including six in North Jersey — in a crackdown on hospital errors and infections.
The list of hospitals, released Thursday, includes Hackensack University Medical Center, St. Mary’s Hospital in Passaic and Bergen Regional Medical Center in Paramus. In all, 721 hospitals nationwide will see their Medicare payments cut by 1 percent for the year that began Oct. 1.
New Jersey was one of 10 states where a third or more of the hospitals were penalized.
The financial incentives and public reporting are a two-pronged strategy under the health care reform law known as Obamacare aimed at reducing harm to patients from hospital stays. Hospital errors are estimated to cost Americans more than $17 billion a year and contribute to the deaths of 180,000 Medicare patients alone.
And because Medicare, the federal insurance program for those over 65, is one of the largest sources of hospital revenue, even a 1 percent reduction can have a sizable impact on health care facilities.
For example, Hackensack University Medical Center, with $1.2 billion in revenue in 2012, had more than $263 million in Medicare payments that year. So a reduction of 1 percent would cost it nearly $3 million.
Reached on Thursday night, hospital spokeswoman Nancy Radwin said that Hackensack “remains committed to reducing its hospital-acquired condition rates. As evidenced...

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Read more about hospital acquired infections and workers compensation

Hospital-Acquired Infections - The Next Wave of Litigation

Aug 15, 2008

The patient was admitted for the installation of a pacemaker and a resulting hospital acquired infection resulted in the loss of his right leg a portion of his left foot, a kidney and his a majority of his hearing. The award was ...

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Protecting Healthcare Workers is a Goal of NIOSH

May 09, 2013

Some infections are contracted during treatment such as infection that are acquired during hospital stay. Those are called Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI). These infection are expensive to treat and are a major concern to .

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Despite Progress, Three-quarters of a Million Infections ...

Mar 26, 2014

Hospital Acquired Infections are a compensable condition and significantly raise treatment costs and time to recuperate from a work related accident or disease. Today's post is shared from the US CDC. On any given day, ...

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Workers' Compensation: CDC Reports Hospital Infections ...

May 31, 2013

Some infections are contracted during treatment such as infection that are acquired during hospital stay. Those are called Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI). These infection are expensive to treat and are a major concern to .

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Fueled by Recession, U.S. Wealth Gap Is Widest in Decades, Study Finds

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

The wealthy are getting wealthier. As for everyone else, no such luck.
A report released on Wednesday by the Pew Research Center found that the wealth gap between the country’s top 20 percent of earners and the rest of America had stretched to its widest point in at least three decades.
Last year, the median net worth of upper-income families reached $639,400, nearly seven times as much of those in the middle, and nearly 70 times the level of those at the bottom of the income ladder.
There has been growing attention to the issue of income inequality, particularly the plight of those earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour or close to it.
But while income and wealth are related (the more you make, the more you can save and invest), the wealth gap zeros in on a different aspect of financial well-being: how much money and other assets you have accumulated over time, including the value of your home and car plus any investments in stocks, bonds and the like.
Think of it as “a measure of the family ‘nest egg,’ ” as Pew calls it — a hoard that can sustain a household during an emergency, like the loss of a job, and in the long run can see someone through retirement.
The wealth gap “exposes varying degrees of vulnerability,” said Valerie Wilson, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-of-center research group in Washington, adding that it also was passed down through the generations.
While those at the top have...

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Designed in Cupertino: Apple under fire again for working conditions at Chinese factories

Apple had promised to improve working conditions in its suppliers' factories.

Holding US companies accountable for unsafe working conditions abroad is a major challenge. Does cheap labor equate to poor working conditions? Is China more interested in providing an abundance of jobs than a safe workplace as and more immigrants flock to the cities every year for work?Ares cheap and unsafe labor conditions really a political tool as a defense to revolution? Today's post is shared from theguardian.com/

Workers in Chinese factories making Apple products continue to be poorly treated, with exhausted employees falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts, the BBC has said after an undercover investigation.
Reporters who took jobs at the Pegatron factories found workers regularly exceeded 60 hours a week – contravening the company’s guidance – and that standards on ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were also breached.
The broadcaster said promises made by Apple to protect workers in the wake of a spate of suicides at supplier Foxconn in 2010 were “routinely broken”.
Apple said that it disagreed with the BBC’s conclusions.
The BBC filmed a health and safety exam at a Pegatron factory in which workers chanted out answers in unison, meaning there was little chance of failing.
The footage also appeared to show workers had no choice to opt out of doing night shifts or working while standing.
One reporter had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off, the BBC reported.
In response to the programme, Apple told the BBC: “We are aware of no other company doing as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions.
“We work with suppliers to address shortfalls, and we see continuous and significant improvement, but we know our work is never done.”
The company said it was common for workers to sleep during breaks but it would investigate whether they were falling asleep while working.
It said it...

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Read more about Apple and safety and health

Death of Apple factory workers highlight safety, underage ...

Dec 13, 2013

Death of Apple factory workers highlight safety, underage issues ... Pegatron and Apple said their investigations indicated that the deaths weren't linked to work conditions. In response to Shi's death, Apple last month sent ...

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Workers' Compensation: Apple Is Moving Distracted Driving ...

Jun 13, 2013

Transportation accidents account for a high proportion of work-related fatalities, and Apple's announcement with week of increasing the access of iCar-Technology into the automobile is raising serious concerns among safety ...

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Workers' Compensation: Safety Begins at Home: Riddell All ...

Jan 18, 2013

In a turn of fate, the company who anufatures football safety gear has itself been sited for serious safety vilations at its own manufacturing facilities. The apple certainly doesn't fall far from the tree. The U.S. Department of ...

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Workers' Compensation: Hey Siri, Where Are the Words ...

Jan 18, 2012

The recently released annual Apple Supplier Report discusses production safety and health issues of Apple's global international suppliers. Admitting many problems including health and safety violations, including an ...

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Sheriff to cede immigration-enforcement foothold

Today's post is shared from chron.com/
An Arizona sheriff known for crackdowns on people living in the country illegally is giving up his last major foothold in immigration enforcement efforts that won him popularity among voters but gradually were reined in by Washington and the courts.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office revealed late Wednesday that it was agreeing to disband a controversial squad that has raided businesses to arrest more than 700 immigrants who were charged with using fake or stolen IDs to get jobs.
"He has proved that when he gets involved in immigration enforcement, he tramples on the U.S. Constitution, at great expense to taxpayers and public safety," said Cecillia Wang, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who won a racial profiling case against Arpaio's office.
The revelation that Arpaio was voluntarily closing his criminal employment squad comes after the...

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Read more about undocumented aliens and workers compensation

Undocumented Aliens Ensnared By Workers' Compensation

Jun 16, 2014

Peter Rousmaniere comments today about the problems, threats and fears that undocumented aliens confront with the nation's patchwork of compensation programs. Injured undocumented aliens in states than mandate the ...

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Florida Rules Illegal Aliens Entitled to Workers Compensation

Jul 03, 2011

A Florida Court has ruled that illegal aliens are entitled to workers' compensation benefits. This follows the acceptance of a majority of States to offer workers' compensation status to workers regardless of their immigration ...

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Tembow

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Pharmacy Executives Face Murder Charges in Meningitis Deaths

Today's post is shared from nytimes.com/

Two senior executives of a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy were charged Wednesday with racketeering and murder in the production of tainted drugs that killed 64 people and sickened hundreds of others across the country with fungal meningitis in the fall of 2012.
The United States attorney’s office here charged Barry J. Cadden, an owner of New England Compounding Center Inc. and the head pharmacist, and Glenn A. Chin, a supervisory pharmacist, with 25 acts of second-degree murder in seven states — Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
“Senior N.E.C.C. pharmacists knew that, despite the filthy conditions at N.E.C.C., the drugs that they made were not property tested for sterility,” said Carmen Ortiz, the United States attorney for Massachusetts.
In all, 14 people were charged in a 131-count indictment, many of them pharmacists at the company, which is now closed. The charges include mail fraud, conspiracy and violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Most were taken into custody at their homes early Wednesday, officials said.

Among those accused were members of the Conigliaro family of Massachusetts — Gregory, Douglas and Carla. The family founded the company in 1998 as part of a broader business organization that included a recycling firm.
Carla and Douglas Conigliaro, a husband and wife, were accused of transferring $33 million in assets to eight different bank accounts after the...

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Read more about meningitis and workers' compensation
Workers' Compensation: Unintended Consequences ...
Oct 22, 2012
Workers' Compensation benefits generally are payable when a condition arises out of the employment including the consequences of medical treatment. Injured workers' who have suffered meningitis as a result of the ...
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Workers' Compensation: Fungal Meningitis: One Year After ...
Oct 29, 2013
The clinical paper, focusing on the early stages of the outbreak, describes patients who experienced a wide variety of illnesses, including meningitis, stroke, arachnoiditis (inflammation of one of the membranes around the ...
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Citing Health Risks, Cuomo Bans Fracking in New York State

Today's post is shared from nytimes.com/

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration announced on Wednesday that it would ban hydraulic fracturing in New York State because of concerns over health risks, ending years of debate over a method of extracting natural gas.
Fracking, as it is known, was heavily promoted as a source of economic revival for depressed communities along New York’s border with Pennsylvania, and Mr. Cuomo had once been poised to embrace it.
Instead, the move to ban fracking left him acknowledging that, despite the intense focus he has given to solving deep economic troubles afflicting large areas upstate, the riddle remained largely unsolved. “I’ve never had anyone say to me, ‘I believe fracking is great,’ ” he said. “Not a single person in those communities. What I get is, ‘I have no alternative but fracking.’ ”
In a double blow to areas that had anticipated a resurgence led by fracking, a state panel on Wednesday backed plans for three new Las Vegas-style casinos, but none along the Pennsylvania border in the Southern Tier region. The panel, whose advice Mr. Cuomo said would quite likely be heeded, backed casino proposals in the Catskills, near Albany and between Syracuse and Rochester.

For Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, the decision on fracking — which was immediately hailed by environmental and liberal groups — seemed likely to help repair his ties to his party’s left wing. It came after a surprisingly contentious...

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Read more about fracking and workers' compensation
Workers' Compensation: People near 'fracking' wells report ...
Sep 13, 2014
People living near natural-gas wells were more than twice as likely to report upper-respiratory and skin problems than those farther away, says a major study Wednesday on the potential health effects of fracking. Nearly two of ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
Workers' Compensation: Big Oil's New Pitch: Fracking ...
Jul 29, 2014
The Obama administration, meanwhile, is weighing plans to streamline DOE approval of liquefied natural gas export facilities (though some industry insiders doubt it will speed up the process). The issue has also played into ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
Workers' Compensation: Fracking: Are elevated levels of ...
Sep 16, 2014
Fracking: Are elevated levels of hydrocarbon gases in drinking-water aquifers near gas wells natural or anthropogenic? Today's post is shared from pnas.org/ Hydrocarbon production from unconventional sources is growing ...
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Jury awards Texas family nearly $3 million in fracking case
Apr 26, 2014
In a landmark legal victory that centered on fracking, a middle-class north Texas ranching family won nearly $3 million from a big natural gas company whose drilling, they contend, caused years of sickness, killed pets and ...

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Obesity is a disability. Employers should start treating it that way.

Today's post is shared from washingtonpost.com/ Helen Leahey is a Welsh journalist and documentary filmmaker who works in education management.

Job interviews are an uncomfortable experience for most people. But for people like me who suffer from morbid obesity, they are especially grueling. It’s hard to impress someone when you’re the fat applicant. There’s the added challenge of sustaining an engaging conversation as a potential future employer walks you around the premises, a hike that leaves you winded. After that, you have to squeeze into a tiny chair and present your credentials, maintaining a charming demeanor as the blood circulation to the lower half of your body is cut off. I went through this process over and over again while I was searching for a job. I did land one eventually, as a manager in one of the world’s leading business schools. But my problems didn’t end there. Because of my handicap, co-workers had to take over tasks that I couldn’t manage – mainly those that involved climbing any number of stairs or walking more than 20 feet.

It is clear to me that morbid obesity — defined as having a body mass index above 40 — is often a disability, irrelevant of the cause. But in many legal systems, that’s still an unanswered question. Even as obesity rates have soared, U.S. and European courts have grappled with whether to classify it as a disability, which would obligate employers to provide necessary accommodations so obese employees can...

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