Workcomcentral (subscription required) reports of Michigan bills to restore benefits to undocumented workers. “Two Detroit lawmakers have introduced legislation that would allow all workers in Michigan who pay into the workers’ compensation fund to receive benefits if they are injured on the job, regardless of their U.S. residency status, nullifying a state Supreme Court ruling.”
But an official with the Michigan Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday that the proposal would result in a “mixed message” being sent to the state’s employers, since lawmakers also are considering legislation that would prohibit employers from hiring undocumented workers and impose penalties on businesses that violated that prohibition.
Majority Floor Leader Steve Tobocman (D) and Sen. Hansen Clarke (D) filed their proposals as House Bill 5572 and Senate Bill 997, respectively.

Continue reading Michigan law and undocumented workers – contending proposals

Edgar Velásquez, an illegal Mexican immigrant who accidentally slashed his face open with a chainsaw in 2006, on January 14 won a $30,000 settlement in a groundbreaking case against the owner of a Rhode Island tree service company. I have posted on this case several times. Thanks to Global Workers Justice Alliance for alerting me to this recent development. Velasquez is back in Mexico. Let’s hope he actually receives the award that he won.
The complete story from the Providence Journal:
PROVIDENCE — Edgar Velásquez, an illegal Mexican immigrant who accidentally slashed his face open with a chainsaw in 2006, yesterday won a $30,000 settlement in a groundbreaking case against the owner of a Warwick tree service company.
Velásquez was working for William J. Gorman Jr., owner of Billy G’s Tree Care, who hired the 22-year-old and then turned his back after Velásquez sustained severe injury.
Velásquez alleged that Gorman tipped off immigration authorities, who arrested and deported him before he could pursue his rightful claim under state law. Last fall, one year after his deportation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security granted Velásquez a rare humanitarian visa that allowed him back into the country to face Gorman in court.
Chief Workers’ Compensation Judge George E. Healey Jr. said the settlement should put employers on notice.
“I think that it’s important that employers realize they cannot employ undocumented workers without consequence,” Healey said.
“My concern in this whole process is that unscrupulous employers will assume that they don’t have to provide a safe workplace and don’t have to be answerable for injuries which occur in the workplace,” he said. “And the resolution of a case like this demonstrates otherwise.”
Velásquez was not in court to hear the news. He returned to Mexico last month, after a three-month stay on his humanitarian visa.

Continue reading Illegal worker in Rhode Island wins workers comp award

Workcompcentral, a subscription based news service, reported today on a conviction of a $17 million payroll scam by a Florida construction contractor. It paid its workers in cash to avoid paying federal taxes. Besides this scam, it appears to have cheated on its workers compensation insurance. We see here again the toxic cocktail of employers using undocumented workers and cheating on tax and insurance obligations. Florida’s Department of Financial Services and California’s Insurance Commission Fraud Assessment Commission have both focused in a serious way to uncover these abuses.
The full article:
Fla. Contractor Underreported Payroll by $17 Million: Top [11/27/07]
A West Palm Beach, Fla. contractor accused of using check cashers as phony subcontractors was convicted by a federal jury last week of underreporting payrolls by more than $17 million over more than a decade.
Lucky Mata, 47, the owner of Kodiak Construction and Management, was convicted last Wednesday on ten counts of conspiracy, filing false payroll tax returns and obstructing a federal grand jury inquiry following a nine-day trial in Miami.
The case is part of an ongoing investigation into payments of cash to undocumented construction crews by contractors seeking to avoid the payment of benefits, including workers’ compensation premiums.
The Mata case, which stems from a June 15, 2006, indictment by a grand jury in Miami, did not result in charges involving workers’ compensation insurance.

Continue reading Florida employer scam involving illegal workers

File a Claim, Get Deported? A new U.S. Census report says that almost one in five people living in the United States speaks a language at home other than English. For a while, Edgar Velazquez was one of them. But that was before the native of Chiapas, Mexico, was deported to his home country.
This is a column I have written for Risk & Insurance Magazine.
His misadventures in workers’ comp land while he was in the United States serve as stark reminder of the plight of illegal workers who are injured on the job.
Of the 37.5 million foreign-born persons living here, 12 million are without documentation. Before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported him in August, this 22-year-old from a mountain hamlet was one of 7.5 million people working here illegally.
I’ve followed his story through WorkCompCentral’s online daily news service and The Providence Journal. What he’s gone through speaks volumes about the perils of keeping 5 percent of our workforce in legal limbo.
In 2005, Velazquez paid a transporter –a “coyote”–to help him sneak into the United States. He got to Rhode Island, where his uncle helped him find work in landscaping. According to the Washington, D.C.-based research group the Pew Hispanic Center, one-quarter of that industry is staffed by illegals.
On March 31, 2006, while employed by Billy G’s Tree Service in Warwick, R.I., Velazquez was cutting a tree limb when his chainsaw kicked back and slashed his face. Velazquez says company owner, William Gorman, refused to give him aid; so he and a co-worker called 911. Surgeons performed emergency reconstructive surgery.
Velazquez’s wounds have largely healed, but he suffers from permanent nerve damage. His situation, although tragic for him, provides a case study for the rest of us.
Illegal workers often have no idea about their workers’ compensation rights. Hospitals and clinics typically assign them a free care account due to their lack of money. It’s not unusual for an illegal to take months to recover from a serious injury before realizing that they can submit a claim. That’s the path Velazquez took in early 2007, when he retained a lawyer.
On Aug. 2, the lawyer was in a Providence courthouse when ICE arrested Velazquez outside. After time in ICE detention centers in Massachusetts and Texas, Velazquez was dumped on the Mexican side of the border.
Gorman denies that he informed on Velazquez, but he’s got his own problems: He had no workers’ comp insurance. Hiring illegal workers and skipping workers’ comp is a toxic cocktail throughout the country. The state is now asking Gorman to pay up to $1,000 for each day he operated his business without cover.
With no uninsured injured worker fund in Rhode Island, that means Velazquez’ only resource may be Gorman’s liability policy. But how can Velazquez sue Gorman from Mexico?
That question is being answered at two levels. Global Workers Justice is promoting better access to American courts for workers like Velazquez. Most states grant illegal immigrants employment rights. But the plaintiffs have to be here to state their case.
As for Velazquez, in September, through the intercession of Nevada Senator Harry Reid, ICE permitted him a brief “humanitarian” return the to United States. Velazquez’s lawyer is also pressing the workers’ comp claim against Gorman.
Whether Velazquez will ever be fairly compensated remains to be seen. But his case is just one of what must be many, and I estimate that half of them go unreported. For those who do report cases, the frequent lag in their reporting and the deportation risk present them with obstacles as dreadful as Velazquez’ chainsaw.

…and are an illegal immigrant. It can also be very costly to the employer. Apparently businesses are penalized now, in fact can be put out of business, if they hire illegal immigrants, but workers comp benefits still apply to these workers. Some in the legislature aim to strip workers comp benefits from illegal workers.
Illegal immigrants who have jobs in Arizona are covered under the state’s workers’ compensation system, and businesses want it to stay that way — despite a new state law that can put them out of business for hiring undocumented workers.
This from the Phoenix Business Journal….
If illegal labor were excluded from the state’s workers’ comp umbrella, that could leave injured migrant workers without care and create a morass of legal troubles for businesses that unlawfully employ illegal immigrants.
“It definitely opens up an entire can of worms, and employers are definitely aware of that right now,” said Abbe Goncharsky, an employment attorney with the Phoenix law office of Lewis and Roca LLP.
There were efforts this year at the state Legislature to exclude illegal immigrants from workers’ comp benefits, and the contentious issue is expected to come up again in 2008

A recent article in the quarterly journal of the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions (IAIABC) reviews statutes and court decisions regarding workers comp coverage of undocumented workers. I have placed the entire article below – it is part I; part II is yet to appear. The authors say that 6 states have statutes that expressly authorize coverage for these workers – CA, FL, NV. NY,TX and UT, while two states’ laws expressly do not – ID and WY. Twelve states have had court decisions in favor of coverage – IL, MI, MN, ND, OH, AL, AZ, CO, MT, NC, SC and VA. Two of these states – MI and VA – also have court decisions going the other way. Two other states have had court decisions which go against coverage — KS and PA.
You ought to consider this list giving a rosier picture of coverage than is the case, because some states, notably NY, constrict the benefits of these workers, though not denying them outright.
By Thomas R. Lee and Dennis V. Lloyd
Illegal immigration is a hot-button issue that has spawned a wide range of legal and public policy questions — including questions regarding workplace injuries involving undocumented workers. The threshold question is eligibility for workers’ compensation benefits, which is a matter of state law.
Coverage of Illegal Aliens under Workers’ Compensation Statutes in Various States

Continue reading Review of workers compensation coverage of illegal workers

This is what the failed immigration reform bill was intended to prevent – a bifurcation of the nation’s worker protections into two systems – one for legal, the other for illegal workers. Judges, policymakers and practitioners are aware that by weakening protections for illegal workers, long term damage to the entire system of protections happens.
Thanks to http://www.workcompcentral.com, I learned that a New York appellate court ruled that illegal workers are ineligible for one form of workers compensation benefit: the so-called “additional compensation” to make up for earnings capacity loss when there is at least a 50% permanent reduction in earnings loss.
The case decided in June was Ramroop v. Flexo-Craft Printing Inc., 501026, 06/21/2007.
Says Workcompcentral, “In 1995, Ronnie Ramroop sustained a work-related injury to his right hand and was awarded a 75% schedule loss of use of his hand. In 2002, Ramroop requested his case be reopened to see if he was entitled to additional benefits provided for workers with at least 50% loss of use of a hand, which Workers’ Compensation Law Section 15 allows.”
The court ruled that because the worker in question was not legally able to work, his earning capacity was reduced – in fact, eliminated – by his illegal status, so that whatever learning loss he sustained from work injury was not the sole reason for earnings loss. Therefore the worker did not meet a criterion for more additional compensation that the injury itself must by be the sole reason for earnings loss.
This could be the start of a turn in judicial oversight that would eclipse a 2006 decision. In July 2006, in Jose Hernandez v. Excel Recycling Corp., the 3rd Division Appellate Court ruled that a policy of disregarding immigration status in determining eligibility for workers’ compensation benefits can be upheld, regardless of federal immigration law.