workers' compensation
kkrisberg | June 7, 2016At Reveal, Jennifer LaFleur writes about the U.S. veterans who witnessed the country’s many nuclear weapon tests, the health problems they’ve encountered in the decades since their service, and their fight for compensation. One of the “atomic veterans” LeFleur interviewed — Wayne Brooks — said: “We were used as guinea pigs – every one of us. They didn’t tell us what it was gonna do to us. They didn’t tell us that we were gonna have problems later on in life with cancers and multiple cancers.” LaFleur writes:
All of the atomic vets were sworn to secrecy. Until the secrecy was lifted decades…
kkrisberg | April 12, 2016At Reveal, Christina Jewett investigates the gaping holes in California’s workers’ compensation system that make it so vulnerable to fraud and leave workers in the dark about the bogus care being charged in their names. She begins the article comparing the workers’ comp system to Medicare:
When Medicare makes rules, it has a strong incentive to encourage doctors, pharmacists and others to follow them: money.
The purse strings are not held nearly as tightly in California’s workers’ compensation system, in which a division of power creates the first major hurdle.
Lawmakers make rules. The state…
kkrisberg | March 16, 2016At Vox, Sarah Kliff writes about the side of medical errors we rarely hear about — the doctors and nurses who make such errors and the mental health toll of living with that responsibility. In an article that explores whether health care workers are getting the support they need to deal with such experiences, Kliff begins with the story of nurse Kim Hiatt:
Kim Hiatt had worked as a nurse for 24 years when she made her first medical error: She gave a frail infant 10 times the recommended dosage of a medication. The baby died five days later.
Hiatt's mistake was an unnecessary tragedy. But what…
kkrisberg | March 1, 2016At The New York Times, writers Kim Barker and Russ Buettner report on the labor investigations being conducted at nail salons throughout New York in the wake of a 2015 New York Times article that exposed widespread wage and labor abuses. They report that all but a dozen of the 230 salons whose investigations were closed last year were found violating at least one labor law. More than 40 percent of the salons were violating wage laws. Barker and Buettner write:
But the details of the state inspections are perhaps most revealing about just how challenging it is to regulate a largely immigrant-…
kkrisberg | February 16, 2016At In These Times, reporter Joseph Sorrentino writes about the heartbreaking plight of uranium miners and millers as well as the history of uranium mining oversight and regulation. He spent a week interviewing uranium workers and their families in New Mexico — workers who are among the thousands who began working in the mines after 1971 and who don’t qualify for federal compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). Sorrentino writes:
Cipriano Lucero worked in uranium mills from 1977 to 1982. He has pulmonary fibrosis, and one of his kidneys failed when he was 48,…
kkrisberg | February 2, 2016At NPR, reporter Howard Berkes writes about the failure of federal laws to protect workers who are left out of the workers’ compensation system. He begins his story with Kevin Schiller, a building engineer for Macy’s department stores for more than two decades. While working in a storage room in a Macy’s in Denton, Texas, a mannequin fell from 12 feet above, hitting Schiller and forcing him to hit his head on a shelf and then the concrete floor. Berkes writes:
Schiller has hardly worked since, given persistent headaches, memory loss, disorientation and extreme sensitivity to bright light and…
cmonforton | January 7, 2016**Update below (1/30/2016)
A new paper by NIOSH researchers explores the use of lung transplants for individuals with work-related pneumoconiosis, including black lung disease. Using data from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) for the period 1996-2014, Blackley and colleagues identified 47 lung-transplant cases in which the patient’s primary diagnosis was “coal workers’ pneumoconiosis” or pneumoconiosis unspecified.” Thirty four of the lung transplants (72%) were performed since 2008.
The medical costs for a bilateral lung transplant are substantial. In 2014, the average cost of…
kkrisberg | January 5, 2016At ProPublica, Michael Grabell expanded his “Insult to Injury” series on the dismantling of the nation’s workers’ compensation system with a disturbing look inside what he dubs the “workers’ comp industrial complex.” He begins his story in Las Vegas at the National Workers’ Compensation and Disability Conference & Expo. And even though Grabell’s previous investigations exposed just how much injured workers must struggle to receive fair compensation and medical care, he details a conference draped in luxury and expense. He writes:
A scantily clad acrobat dangles from the ceiling,…
kkrisberg | November 10, 2015Workers who get injured on the job already face significant challenges when trying to access the workers’ compensation system. But for workers who suffer from occupational illnesses related to chemical exposures — illnesses that can develop over long periods of time — the workers’ comp system is nearly useless, according to reporter Jamie Smith Hopkins at the Center for Public Integrity.
In another installment of the center’s eye-opening investigative series “Unequal Risk,” Hopkins explores the often insurmountable barriers that sick workers face — barriers so insurmountable that most people…
cmonforton | October 15, 2015“Ugh,” “argh,” or a moan. That's what I typically hear from injured workers when they describe their experience maneuvering the workers’ compensation (WC) system. The trouble runs the gamut from insurers refusing to authorize treatment by specialists (e.g., an orthopedist,) to insisting they return to work despite their own physicians’ opinions that doing so will cause more harm, to only being paid a portion of their lost wages.
Well, if workers have it bad under WC, an alternative system looks even worse. ProPublica’s Michael Grabell and National Public Radio’s Howard Berkes report on…
cmonforton | September 7, 2015The fourth edition of “The Year in US Occupational Health & Safety: Fall 2014 – Summer 2015” was released today, Labor Day 2015. The yearbook recaps key policy changes and research on worker safety and health at the federal, state, and local levels. Our goal is for the report to be a resource for activists, researchers, regulators and anyone else who wants to refresh their memory about the highlights in the previous 12 months on worker health and safety topics. I wrote this fourth edition of the yearbook with my colleagues from The Pump Handle. Kim Krisberg is the report’s co-author, and…
kkrisberg | September 4, 2015The ride-hailing mobile app Uber is desperate to prove it’s nothing more than a technology platform that connects drivers and passengers. As long as it can classify its workers as independent contractors, it can sidestep a whole host of labor and wage laws. But a court ruling issued earlier this week could open the door to change all that.
On Tuesday, a federal judge in San Francisco granted class action status to a lawsuit challenging Uber’s classification of workers as independent contractors. The decision doesn’t rule on the question of whether Uber drivers should be classified as…
kkrisberg | June 5, 2015Back in 1970 when the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration was established, local policymakers could choose whether or not to extend OSHA protections to state employees. Unfortunately, Massachusetts took a pass. But decades later — and after years of advocacy, organizing and research on the part of worker advocates — employees of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts can now look forward to safer and healthier workplaces.
In June 2014, then-Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed legislation that expanded OSHA protections to executive branch employees — that’s more than 150,000…
kkrisberg | May 19, 2015An injured worker who was featured in the ProPublica/NPR investigation on the dismantling of the workers’ compensation system recently testified before lawmakers in Illinois, cautioning them against making the same drastic workers’ comp cuts as his home state of Oklahoma. Michael Grabell, who co-authored the original investigation, writes that John Coffell, who lost his home after hurting his back at an Oklahoma tire plant, was part of an eight-hour hearing on workers’ comp before the entire Illinois state assembly. Grabell writes in ProPublica:
Coffell told the legislators that after…
kkrisberg | May 5, 2015The U.S. Department of Labor is proposing a new rule that would prohibit coal companies from withholding medical evidence from workers with black lung disease who are seeking compensation, reports Chris Hamby at the Center for Public Integrity.
In its proposed rule, the agency cited the case of coal miner Gary Fox as part of its justification. Fox’s story was also featured in the Center for Public Integrity’s Breathless and Burdened series, which investigated how coal companies undermine sick workers’ benefit claims. Hamby, who authored many of the Breathless and Burdened reports, writes that…
kkrisberg | March 10, 2015The same day that NPR and ProPublica published their investigation into the dismantling of the workers’ compensation system, OSHA released its own report, “Adding Inequality to Injury: The Cost of Failing to Protect Workers on the Job.” The agency writes that the failure of employers to prevent millions of work-related injuries and illnesses each year coupled with changes to workers’ compensation systems is exacerbating income inequality and pushing many workers into poverty. The report states:
For many injured workers and their families, a workplace injury creates a trap which leaves them…
lborkowski | March 9, 2015A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Two related pieces at ReportingonHealth.org: Rita Beamish, "Older Americans Act limps along at 50" and Ryan White, "Intensive program keeps elderly at home out of nursing home"
Gillian B. White in The Atlantic: Unplanned Births: Another Outcome of Economic Inequality?
Mike Paarlberg in the Washington City Paper: Workers' Fights ("Unpaid wages, uncompensated injuries, and unjust firings: A look at the margins of the DC labor market")
Nikole Hannah-Jones in Politico Magzine: A Letter from Black America: Yes, we fear the police. Here's why.
Erika Check…
cmonforton | March 5, 2015A quick way to lose someone in a conversation is to mention workers' comp. No doubt I’ve already lost readers because my headline included the phrase. But you’ll think differently about the topic if you take a look at this week’s reporting by ProPublica and National Public Radio. Read just the first 400 words of “The Demolition of Workers’ Comp” and you’ll be hooked on the story.
Yesterday morning, investigative reporters Michael Grabell and Howard Berkes discussed their reporting with NPR host David Greene. In the interview they noted:
“Since 2003, more than 30 states have passed laws that…
kkrisberg | January 16, 2015Food safety is at the top of the list for local restaurant inspectors in Rockaway Township, New Jersey. Recently, however, inspectors tested out the feasibility of adding a new safety checkpoint to the menu — the safety of restaurant employees. The effort was a success and one that organizers hope will ultimately lead to safer working conditions for food service workers statewide.
“Workers need a voice,” said Peter Tabbot, health officer for the Rockaway Township Division of Health. “This is a small way that we can help provide a bit of that voice.”
The new occupational health and safety…
cmonforton | October 23, 2014Exclusions, barriers, bans and hurdles describe many injured workers’ experiences with workers’ compensation. A system that was supposed to assist them and provide streamlined procedures to recoup medical costs and lost wages has become a nightmare for individuals who’ve been injured on-the-job. A new policy brief by the National Economic & Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) describes seven destructive trends in workers’ compensation laws which reflect the attitude of many in state legislatures who “see workers’ comp as an unnecessary cost for business rather than a critical health care and…