Help for workers sickened on job

• The Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs updated policy in the Federal Employees’ Compensation Program to further streamline claims processing for federal firefighters with certain occupational diseases.
• The bulletin builds on the previous changes we made last year and further implements provisions of the Federal Firefighters Fairness Act.
• In April 2022, we changed policy to ease the evidentiary requirement for federal firefighters to connect their exposure to toxic substances with certain diseases and illnesses.
• There are over 10,000 firefighters in the federal government.
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Expanding workers’ compensation for nurses with PTSD

• The Washington. House labor committee heard testimony on SB 5454.
• Under current workers’ compensation law, nurses can only qualify for benefits for PTSD if they can pinpoint their PTSD to a specific incident.
• If the bill becomes law, nurses would no longer need to associate their PTSD with a specific incident to qualify for workers’ compensation.
• An earlier version of this bill included a presumption of eligibility for PTSD for nurses, but that presumption had to be removed from the Ways & Means committee due to high costs to the state.
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Georgia County fights gender-affirming nursing

• Houston County, Georgia, has been accused of refusing to expand its medical coverage to include gender-affirming care for an employee.
• The county spending $1.2 million to fight the effort.
• A Houston County sheriff’s deputy in Georgia has urged her county to expand its healthcare coverage to cover her gender-affirming care,
• The county denied it and cost as the primary reason, prompting the sheriff to sue the county for discrimination.
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CFLPA fighting for access to workers’ compensation

• The Canadian Football League Player Association has been fighting to have its members covered by workers’ compensation since 2018.
• During that year, the Supreme Court of Canada decided against hearing former player Arland Bruce III’s concussion lawsuit against the CFL and its former commissioner.
• The court previously ruled unionized employees must use labor arbitration and not the courts to resolve disputes arising from their collective agreement.
• Lawyers argued the CFL’s collective agreement was unusual because athletes individually were excluded from occupational health and safety regulations and ineligible for workers’ compensation.
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