Note to our valued subscribers: Workers’ Comp Advisor will be taking its annual holiday break starting Thursday, December 22. We will resume daily netletter publication Wednesday, January 4, 2022. We wish all of our subscribers Season’s Greetings and a Happy New Year.
Covid leads to industry-wide losses
- There was a 6.1% decline in covered jobs related to the pandemic, which contributed to a 6.5% decline in total benefits between 2019 and 2020, according to the National Academy of Social Insurance.
- Cases with days away from work, however, increased to their highest level since 2007, which should correspond to an increase in benefits.
- The pandemic also drove an 11.4% decline in medical benefits compared to 2019.
- The share of medical benefits as compared to cash benefits fell from 49.7% in 2019 to 47.1% in 2020 after a decade of a nearly 50/50 split.
Waste and recycling industry wants to improve compliance
- The waste and recycling industry is working with OSHA to reduce injury and illness rates.
- OSHA requested an $89 million increase in its 2023 budget to invest in workers, their families, and surrounding communities and boost whistleblower protection.
- The agency is devoting up to $10 million to advance high-priority rulemaking and strengthening enforcement programs.
- OSHA is establishing a safety tech junior-level position that will work as a mentorship opportunity for those who wish to become compliance officers.
Georgia agent sentenced for fraud
- A jury in Walton County, Georgia, sentenced a 66-year-old man to five years in prison after selling fake insurance to business owners.
- The Georgia State Board of Workers’ Compensation’s Enforcement Division investigated the man for two years.
- The defendant worked out of his Suwanee home where he sold fake certificates of insurance for workers’ compensation coverage since 2018.
- After investigators looked into the case, they found that none of his clients were insured.
Proposed fines after employee’s leg crushed
- Federal safety inspectors have determined that a falling load from a below-the-hook magnet crushed the leg of an employee at a Kewaunee, Wisconsin, heavy fabrication manufacturing company.
- Workers at Kewaunee Fabrications were exposed to an unguarded machine point of operation that did not prevent workers from having their hands in the danger zone while straightening parts.
- OSHA issued citations to the company for one willful and 11 serious safety violations and proposed $250,696 in penalties.
- Kewaunee Fabrications manufactures aerial ladders and mounting plates primarily used for fire trucks.