Inexperienced, new employees file most workers’ comp claim

• A third (34%) of workplace injuries occurred during an employee’s first year on the job, according tothe 2023 Traveler’s Injury Impact Report.
• Restaurants, construction, and transportation industries are most affected by those injuries, but other logistics-related businesses—including manufacturing and wholesale—are at risk as well.
• First-year injuries account for a third of all workers’ compensation costs, according to the report.
• The most common cause of injury in the workplace is overexertion (29%), followed by slips, trips, and falls (23%).
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Safety National awards announced

• Safety National announced the winners of its annual Safety First Grant Program. Three policyholders will be awarded matching grants to develop the creative risk control ideas they submitted into formal safety programs.
• First Place:  Costa Farms was awarded the $10,000 matching grant for the addition of harvesting robots to help with the mobilization of plants in their fields. This will reduce slip, trip, and fall and ergonomic-related employee injuries associated with spacing tasks.
• Second Place: Big Y Foods was awarded the $5,000 matching grant toward the implementation of ergonomic mixing tables in their bakery department to offset manual material handling of baking goods. These devices will reduce dangerous lifting exposures, which lead to frequent back and shoulder injuries for bakery personnel.
• Third Place: Berry Global was awarded the $2,500 matching grant for an engineering solution used to eliminate dangerous conditions around turret winders on the production floor. This technology will allow safer operating conditions for pre-existing machines, which will be retrofitted with light curtains and mechanical hard guarding.
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Pandemic had little negative impact on timely medical services

• The median time from a worker’s injury to first medical service was either unchanged or shorter early in the COVID-19 pandemic compared to previous years, according to a new report by the Workers Compensation Research Institute.
• The time to first surgery and physical medicine varied considerably across states, by injury category and provider type.
• There were no delays in the time to first “entry” services were identified during the pandemic. For workers who had these “entry” services during the pandemic, the typical time from injury to first visit remained similar to pre-pandemic years.
• Most states had delays in the time to surgery during the early pandemic period in 2020, a trend that began to reverse in 2021.
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Denver cargo workers strike over safety concerns

• Cargo handlers at Denver International Airport walked off the job over workplace safety concerns and marched outside the airport’s main terminal for several hours.
• Organizers of the strike were helped by the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, chapter for Colorado, which represents roughly 1,200 workers at DIA.
• The workers said managers had failed to respond to repeated requests for safety improvements.
• Passenger flights were on schedule at the airport which serves over 70 million passengers a year and employs roughly 40,000 people.
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