Today's post comes from guest author Paul J. McAndrew, Jr., from Paul McAndrew Law Firm. This is the second part of a three-part series in which I explain why workers' should claim their rights under workers'’ compensation laws. The first installment explains how employers commonly and purposefully make it difficult for workers' to claim comp. [...]
Today's post comes from guest author Catherine Stanton, from Pasternack Tilker Ziegler Walsh Stanton & Romano.A few weeks ago, I read about a crisis occurring in Pakistan and India. In Pakistan, a week-long heatwave killed more than 1,200 people and in India, the heat killed close to 2,200. Tens of thousands more were treated at [...]
Occupational asthma (OA) is asthma that's caused or worsened by breathing in chemical fumes, gases, dust or other substances on the job. Typical symptoms of OA are: chest tightness, wheezing, and shortness of breath. OA accounts for approximately ten to twenty-five percent of adult onset asthma. (Dykewicz, MS. Occupational Asthma: Current Concepts in Pathogenesis, Diagnosis, [...]
On July 22, 2015, Hassell Construction Co. was cited by OSHA for 16 safety violations (including 6 egregious willful violations) and given a whopping $423,900 fine. Hassell Construction Co. is a construction company based in Richmond, Texas with about 150 employees that construct water and sewer lines around Houston, Texas. The employer was given 15 [...]
Today's post comes from guest author Rod Rehm, from Rehm, Bennett & Moore.This is the first installment of a series that will educate workers' and their families about injury, disease and death resulting from work. The most basic question is: What is workers'’ compensation? Workers’ compensation is a legal system established in all 50 states, [...]
Today's post comes from guest author Rod Rehm, from Rehm, Bennett & Moore.The AFL-CIO’s annual report about “the state of safety and health protections for America’s workers'” has been written about in a previous year on this blog. The recently released 2015 version focuses in an in-depth manner on data from 2013 and includes around 200 pages [...]
Today's post comes from guest author Paul J. McAndrew, Jr., from Paul McAndrew Law Firm.I’m starting here a three-part series explaining why workers' should claim their rights under workers'’ compensation laws. The three parts are, in summary: How the employer makes it tough to claim work comp; How the insurer makes it tough to claim [...]
The Massachusetts Workers’ Compensation Advisory Council has released its Fiscal Year 2014 Annual Report (PDF link). This report contains some eyebrow-raising statistics. Between 2008 and 2014, Massachusetts was able to help over 50,000 workers' receive coverage due to Stop Work Orders (SWOs). In 2014 alone the Agency was able to obtain insurance for over 5,000 workers' [...]
Many decades ago, OSHA created workplace safety standards to help employees avoid injuries from dangerous working conditions. Despite these standards, each year more than 3 million workers' are seriously injured or killed while on the job. Because Workers’ Compensation fails to cover all the costs of injury, some low-wage workers' (who have a disproportionate rate [...]