workers' compensation
kkrisberg | October 10, 2014“Yes, you can use my name because it doesn’t matter. They have already done everything they can do to me.”
Those are words from Eliceo, a former dairy farm worker in upstate New York. Earlier this year, Eliceo, 36, decided to speak up and share his story with local advocates who are tirelessly working to improve conditions on New York dairy farms and end persistent reports of workplace safety violations, preventable work-related injuries, wage theft, exploitation and in some cases, worker deaths. His story of dangerous farm conditions, inadequate to nonexistent safety training and an employer…
kkrisberg | October 7, 2014Washington Post reporter Lydia DePillis investigates the factors behind increasing workplace fatality rates among Latinos, even while overall workplace deaths in the U.S. are on the decline. DePillis starts with the story of Abdón Urrutia, a construction worker who injured his back while working on a project in Tysons Corner, Virginia.
On the day of his injury, after Urrutia lifted himself up the floor, he says, the staff at the company where he worked gave him eight ibuprofen, and he was able to go back to work. And he was back at work the next day, too — on lighter duty, without carrying…
lborkowski | September 24, 2014by Michael Lax, MD, MPH
The news that almost one third of NFL football players can expect to suffer the effects of brain trauma made headlines in major media. While it is not surprising that large men, often leading with their heads, bashing each other week after week suffer some consequences, what was unexpected was how many players are likely to be injured, and that the NFL actually acknowledged this reality.
Obviously, the findings lead to the question of what to do about it besides compensate the injured. In the context of workplace injuries the injury rate in this industry is…
kkrisberg | September 12, 2014For eight years, Dora worked at a frozen pizza factory in Romeoville, Illinois, called Great Kitchens. For eight hours a day — sometimes seven days a week — she assembled pizza boxes or arranged cheese and other toppings on pizzas. The consequences of years of such repetitive work surfaced in October 2012, when her hands would go numb and a painful cyst formed on her left wrist. She told her supervisor about the problem, but he said he couldn’t do anything about it — Dora was a temporary worker hired through a staffing agency and so Great Kitchens wasn’t responsible for addressing her injury…
kkrisberg | September 9, 2014Across the country, roughly 10 million construction workers spend each day in a dangerous and fickle industry. They hang drywall, lay carpet, shingle roofs. Yet in the eyes of their bosses, they aren't employees due the benefits the government requires.
That’s the intro to an extensive series of articles that McClatchy DC recently published called “Contract to Cheat,” which chronicles a year-long investigation into the consequences of misclassifying workers as independent contractors and how government regulators are doing nothing to stop it. The in-depth series offers investigations from…
kkrisberg | May 9, 2014In New York, construction is the deadliest industry, with immigrant workers experiencing half of all occupational-related fatalities. Across the country in California in 2012, transportation incidents took the unenviable top spot as the leading cause of workplace fatalities. In Massachusetts in 2013, it’s estimated that upward of 500 workers died from occupational disease, at least 1,800 were diagnosed with cancers associated with workplace exposures and 50,000 workers experienced serious injury. In Wyoming, workplace deaths climbed to a five-year high in 2012, from 29 in 2011 to 35 in 2012.…
cmonforton | May 8, 2014Brett Bouchard, 17, was working at Violi’s Restaurant in Massena, NY last month. Press reports indicate he was cleaning out a pasta-making machine when the equipment severed his right arm at the elbow. He was rushed to a local hospital which later transferred the young worker to Massachusetts General Hospital.
Nationally, there are thousands of work-related amputations each year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that 5,100 U.S. workers suffered an amputation injury in 2012. But we’ve written here before about the limitations of BLS’ estimates for work-related injuries. Those…
kkrisberg | February 21, 2014Last weekend, construction worker Jose Perez stood up and spoke about life as a construction worker in one of then nation’s most prosperous cities. In front of him were hundreds of supporters who had gathered in downtown Austin, Texas, to call on a local developer to treat its workers better. Looming behind him was the new Gables Park Tower, an unfinished luxury apartment complex where construction workers have reported dangerous working conditions and frequent wage violations.
Austin’s Workers Defense Project, a worker-led nonprofit that helps low-income workers fight for better working…
kkrisberg | December 6, 2013There are few factors that shape a person’s health as strongly and predictably as income. And while enforcing wage and labor laws may at first seem outside the purview of public health agencies, Rajiv Bhatia adamantly disagrees. In fact, he says that public health may wield the most persuasive stick in town.
Bhatia is the director of environmental health at the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) and is behind an innovative policy change that uses the agency’s existing regulatory authority to prevent wage theft and support basic labor rights among restaurant workers. Begun in…
egrossman | December 4, 2013On the shopping day known as “Black Friday,” activists held protests at Walmart stores across the country to protest the company’s low wages. In one of the eight press releases the company issued in the 24 hours between Thanksgiving Day and the close of the November 29 “Black Friday,” shopping day, Walmart corporate communications vice president David Tovar stated:
“For our part, we want to be absolutely clear about our jobs, the pay and benefits we offer our associates, and the role retail jobs play in the U.S. economy. Walmart provides wages on the higher end of the retail average with full…
cmonforton | November 12, 2013My jaw continues to drop when I think about the scathing reports this month from the Center for Public Integrity about the law firm Jackson Kelly and their scheming with clients to screw coal miners out of black lung benefits. In “Coal industry's go-to law firm withheld evidence of black lung, at expense of sick miners,” Chris Hamby explains the deceitful and devious manner in which Jackson Kelly attorneys intentionally withheld medical reports that validate diagnoses of serious respiratory disease in coal miners.
The irony---the disgusting irony---is how coal operators insist that their…
kkrisberg | August 2, 2013Fair working standards for construction workers and financial profit for developers aren't incompatible, according to a new report from Texas' Workers Defense Project. In fact, consumers are actually willing to pay more to live in places built on principles of safety, economic justice and dignity.
Released this week in collaboration with the University of Texas' Center for Sustainable Development, "Green Jobs for Downtown Austin: Exploring the Consumer Market for Sustainable Buildings" studied consumer attitudes toward sustainable construction jobs and explored the market for certification…
cmonforton | May 29, 2013Nearly 40 percent of work-related injuries and illnesses seen in U.S. emergency rooms are not billed to workers’ compensation---the insurance program that’s designed to cover them. An increasing number of patients suffering from injuries or illnesses caused by exposures at work are using their private insurance, paying out of pocket or billing Medicaid or Medicare, instead of filing the appropriate claim to their employers’ workers’ compensation insurer. Those are the findings of a new study published in the journal Health Services Research by researchers with CDC’s National Institute for…
lborkowski | March 1, 2013by Kim Krisberg
Texas construction workers who've lost their lives on unsafe worksites may be gone, but they certainly haven't been forgotten. Earlier this week, hundreds of Texas workers and their supporters took to the streets to demand legislators do more to stop preventable injury and death on the job. They took their demands and the stories of fallen workers all the way the halls of the state capitol.
Just two days ago, workers from every corner of the Lone Star state made their way to Austin to take part in the Day of the Fallen, a day of action to memorialize construction workers…
lborkowski | February 1, 2013by Kim Krisberg
Texas may boast a booming construction sector, but a deeper look reveals an industry fraught with wage theft, payroll fraud, frighteningly lax safety standards, and preventable injury and death. In reality, worker advocates say such conditions are far from the exception — instead, they've become the norm.
Such conditions were chronicled in a new in-depth report released earlier this week. Researchers, who surveyed nearly 1,200 construction workers in Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Austin and El Paso, found that one in five construction workers experienced a workplace injury…
lborkowski | January 14, 2013by Kim Krisberg
Dr. Paul Demers says he frequently finds himself having to make the case for why studying workplace exposures to carcinogens is important. Oftentimes, he says, people believe such occupational dangers are a thing of the past.
"A lot of people are still developing cancer and dying from cancer due to workplace exposures, but only a small fraction of those are compensated, so people may think the magnitude of this problem is small," said Demers, director of the Occupational Cancer Research Centre in Ontario, Canada. "I wanted to have better data."
And in just a few years, he will…
cmonforton | December 20, 2012Last week, my home State of Michigan became the 24th one to enact "right-to-work" legislation. I'm sure the great labor leader Walter Reuther (1907-1970) rolled over in his grave when Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed the anti-union bill into law.
Workers coming together to negotiate for better wages, benefits and working conditions created the middle class in America. Belonging to a union means workers can be more secure that they won't be fired arbitrarily, and have more power to receive skills training and guard against unsafe working conditions. This latter point is an underlying…
lborkowski | October 18, 2012The US workers' compensation system isn't so much a system as it is a collection of state programs with varying rules and requirements. The basic idea is that employers purchase workers-compensation insurance, and when a worker is injured or made ill on the job, the insurer will cover medical costs and, if the worker misses more than a few days on the job, pay wage-replacement benefits. It's intended to avoid high-stakes litigation in which employers and workers fight over who's at fault; instead, it's supposed to compensate anyone with a work-related illness or injury.
In practice, many…
lborkowski | October 12, 2012by Kim Krisberg
Researchers studying workers’ compensation claims have found that almost one in 12 injured workers who begin using opioids were still using the prescription drugs three to six months later. It's a trend that, not surprisingly, can lead to addiction, increased disability and more work loss – but few doctors are acting to prevent it, explains a new report from the Massachusetts-based Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI).
Report researchers looked at longer-term opioid use in 21 states and how often doctors followed recommended treatment guidelines for monitoring…
lborkowski | August 31, 2012by Kim Krisberg
It's Tuesday evening and as usual, the small parking lot outside the Workers Defense Project on Austin's eastside is packed. The dusty lot is strewn with cars and pick-up trucks parked wherever they can fit and get in off the road. I've arrived well before the night's activities begin, so I easily secure a spot. But my gracious guide and translator, a college intern named Alan Garcia, warns me that I might get blocked in. It happens all the time, he says.
It was the first of two August evenings I'd spend observing the project in action and meeting the workers who help lead its…