Changes in how state oversees injured workers

• Minnesota lawmakers passed a bill amending the state’s Workers’ Compensation Act, Chapter 176 that will impact how the state oversees the handling of employees injured on the job.
• The bill, proposed by the Workers’ Compensation Advisory Council, included a substantial increase to the permanent partial disability (PPD) benefits compensation schedule effective Oct. 1, 2023.
• The limitations on fees charged for retrieval of electronic medical records requested as part of a workers’ compensation claim, just to name two of the more significant changes.
• Workers’ comp is an important framework to incent improved workplace safety practices and successfully return employees to productive work after an occupational injury disrupts employment.
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Habitat for Humanity cited for fatal workplace accident

• The N.C. Department of Labor cited and fined Cape Fear Habitat for Humanity following an employee’s on-the-job death in May.
• The company is accused of violating labor laws outlined in Chapter 95 of the North Carolina General Statutes and was fined more than $10,000 as a result.
• According to the notification, the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Division conducted an inspection of the Habitat for Humanity ReStore after being notified that an employee died after sustaining an injury at work,
• The investigation resulted in the company being cited for two violations: one marked “serious: and one deemed “non-serious.”
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New Jersey nurses want more protection

• The Brookings Institute reported that perhaps as many as four million workers have been sidelined by COVID.
• In 2020, the State of New Jersey extended to nurses and other essential workers a workers compensation presumption that if they contracted COVID it would be considered a consequence of their workplace exposure.
• Judy Danella, president of USW Local 4-200, said her members were buoyed by the backing from other healthcare unions and the broader community.
• This includes a growing list of supportive elected officials who cite the nurses’ heroics during COVID-19.
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Disagreement with railway safety

• The major freight railroads have concerns over whether they will be allowed to discipline some workers who use a government hotline to report safety concerns.
• This has kept the railroads from following through on the promise they made in March to join the program after a fiery Ohio derailment prompted calls for reforms.
• Unions and workplace safety experts say the idea of disciplining workers who report safety concerns undermines the purpose of creating such a hotline because workers won’t use it if they fear retribution.
• A former OSHA official said it’s “dangerous companies always try to blame all unsafe conditions on workers — that it’s the unsafe workers — when the statistics are really clear that it’s unsafe conditions that cause almost all injuries.”
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