State eases premiums 

• The Wyoming Legislature passed, and Gov. Mark Gordon signed into three bills into law, including a workers’ comp measure, aimed at helping Wyoming businesses and employees.
• The workers’ compensation provision for adverse deviation provides an opportunity to ease premiums for employers. 
• HB 72 Workers’ Compensation-provision for adverse deviation allows for a potential reduction in workers’ compensation employer-paid premiums by considering investment earnings on the PFAD as revenue.
• Before this change, only the investment income on the amount held as the loss reserves was considered in determining future workers’ compensation rates.
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Massachusetts couple charged for fraud

• A Hopkinton, Mass., couple who operate a roofing and construction company in Framingham were arrested and charged in connection with separate schemes to defraud their workers’ compensation insurance carriers. I
• The couple transferred money received for a pandemic loan for their business and transferred it to their private account, then used it to make a down payment on a home in the Highland Park neighborhood of Hopkinton.
• Ronaldo Solano, 51, and Adriana Solano, 40, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston with one count each of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud.
• Ronaldo Solano was charged with one count of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud. They were arrested Wednesday morning and were scheduled to appear in federal court in Boston.
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Minnesota businesses have incentives to misclassify worker

• Businesses in Minnesota have incentives to misclassify workers as independent contractors rather than employees because they don’t have to pay workers’ compensation insurance premiums, minimum wage, overtime premiums, and payroll taxes
• State labor regulators are supposed to serve as a check against these incentives by penalizing bad actors, but they seldom do, according to a new report by the Office of the Legislative Auditor.
• That report says Minnesota’s response to worker misclassification is both uncoordinated and inadequate,” and that employers face only limited consequences when the state does identify it.
• Misclassification isn’t just important for the worker who’s injured on the job and can’t access workers’ compensation or the worker who is cheated out of overtime pay or who is laid off and can’t get unemployment insurance.
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North Carolina doesn’t adopt new rules for infectious diseases at farms

• The N.C. Department of Labor has chosen not to adopt new infectious disease rules for farms and construction companies.
• Petitions were filed for the creation of infectious disease rules for migrant housing and for employers in the agricultural and construction industries in the event of a future public health emergency.
• The groups wanted the state to put requirements in place for face masks, personal protective equipment and social distancing standards.
• The rules would have applied to work sites, employee housing quarters, and buses or other vehicles used to transport workers.
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