Category: Workers’ Compensation

Failure of existing guest worker programs as seen in FL figures

The failure of existing guest temporary visa programs can be summarized in these figures: the number of workers under them in Florida is probably equivalent to 1% of all undocumented workers in that state.
These programs are designed to attach each worker to a particular employer for a specified period of time – in months. The Palm Beach Post ran on Dec. 9, 2003, as part of an extensive series on farm labor, an analysis of how the federal governments guest worker provisions for temporary farm labor have worked in Florida. Farm employers rarely use these programs. According to the federal government only 2,423 H2A and H2B visas were issued to Mexican for work in Florida. I have previously estimated, drawing on Urban Institute figures, that as of 1/1/06 there were roughly 600,000 undocumented workers in Florida. Assume that total figure in 2002 was 450,000: H2 visa programs were equivalent to less than 1% of Florida’ undocumented workers.
According to the Post:

Continue reading Failure of existing guest worker programs as seen in FL figures

Florida’s improves work protections to migrant workers, progess report just out

Facing up to near catastrophic safety events among migrant workers, Florida has since 2004 tried to turn a corner: tougher monitoring, reform of a national class code for death benefits, and a new legislative commission which just issued a report.
Transportation deaths alone would have been a sufficient spur. According to Rural Migration News, in April 2004, nine were killed and 10 injured after their van rolled over four times on I-95 in Fort Pierce. In June 2004, two were killed when a van built for seven, but with 11 workers, overturned; most of the men had no identification.
Florida in May 2004 revived the Florida Agricultural Workers Safety Act (FAWS), which expired in 1998. (See details below). It also corrected an egregious wrong in state law. Citing an award winning Palm Beach Post series in late 2003 (link now dead), Workers Comp Insider reported that state law since the 1920s put death benefits at 50% less if the deceased was not an American or Canadian. In 2003 the legislator upped the U.S/Canadian award from $100,000 to $150,000 – but retained the 50% cut, despite a reported state Supreme Court decision striking it down. Only in 2004 was the wrong corrected by law. The Palm Beach Post reported in 2003 since 1990, nearly 30% of the death cases settled, with the average settlement of $32,000.”
The new law creates a Legislative Commission on Migrant and Seasonal Labor to supervise and coordinate migrant labor programs geared to improve worker living conditions, health, housing and sanitation as well as knowledge of labor laws, education, transportation and public assistance. This month (Feb 2006) it issued a
Report to the Legislature.
See my earlier posting on SAFE: Socially Accountable Farm Employers.
According to Rural Migrant News,

Continue reading Florida’s improves work protections to migrant workers, progess report just out

Deaths at work: who dies, how

Immigrants fill many high risk jobs, such as in construction, farming and convenience stores. The blog Confined Space does an invaluable service of listing all the work deaths the blogger, Jordan Barab, learns about. In his current posting he records 68 deaths from traumatic events. (Go down 1/3 of the way to “Weekly Toll.”) The majority of the deaths are from construction, logging, or farm accidents or by murder. Example of a murder: immigrant worker at a donut shop killed by robber. It’s not possible to know fully from his thumbnail descriptions how many were immigrants, legal or illegal.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that about 5,700 deaths are occuring at work each year. One researcher, Paul Leigh of UC Davis, estimates deaths at upwards of ten times that — by counting death from diseases such as the deaths of 400,000 Americans who have or are expected to die from asbestos-related conditions acquired at work, according to a RAND report.

H-2A visas – snapshot of wage and worker comp rules

The wage or rate of pay must be the same for U.S. workers and H-2A workers. The hourly rate must also be at least as high as the applicable Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR), federal or state minimum wage, or the applicable prevailing hourly wage rate, whichever is higher. The AEWR is established every year by the Department of Labor. For 2005, the minimum wage set by DOL for Washington State is $9.03.
The employer must provide workers’ compensation insurance where it is required by state law. Where state law does not require it, the employer must provide equivalent insurance for all workers. Proof of insurance coverage must be provided to the regional administrator before certification is granted.

Can illegal immigrants receive workers compensation benefits? MA said, “Yes”.

The Massachusetts Medellin case, finally resolved at the end of 2003, is a good example of how a state can reach a decision that workers compensation laws benefits are available to undocumented workers. Subsequent decisions in other states may have relied on this case. I will report on them later. The MA decision relied on two findings: the validity of employment contracts, and the lack of authority of federal laws over state workers compensation law.
This information is drawn from a 2004 analysis by the National Immigration Law Center.
A cleaner and construction laborer, Guillermo Medellín, sustained lasting injuries when he fell into an eight-foot-deep hole. An administrative law judge for the Department of Industrial Accidents (DIA) ruled that Medellin was eligible for benefits, even after Medellin testified that he was in the country illegally. The insurer then filed an appeal after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002, in Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB, that an undocumented worker could not receive back pay.
The DIA then affirmed the original decision on the two findings noted above. Below is a summary of its reasoning. :

Continue reading Can illegal immigrants receive workers compensation benefits? MA said, “Yes”.

Immigrant worker injuries at day labor

According to On the Corner, the nationwide survey of day laborers, almost all urban day laborers are immigrants, and mostly from Latin America. They reported very high injury rates.
75% consider their jobs dangerous
19% had suffered a work injury requiring medical attention.
67% missed work due to a work injury
22% of those injured lost at least one month of work.
By these figures alone it is hard fully to compare their experience with that of native-born Americans in roughly the same occupations. But it would be reasonable to conjecture that immigrant day laborers’ frequency of injuries, and the severity of the injuries, is twice that of native-born Americans.
For earlier postings about On the Corner, go here, here and here.

Inconsistent quality of healthcare for work injured immigrant workers

Many low income immigrant workers go to hospital emergency departments and to free care community health clinics with their work injuries. Emergency departments and community health clinics typically do not understand how to determine the occupational cause of injury, and do not try to contact the employer and to make sure that an injured worker accesses the workers comp system.
The clinics in particular often appear to be tone deaf to the special needs of injured workers. Example: I contacted the Joseph Smith Community Health Center in Boston, which actively serves low income immigrants, a dozen times to ask them about how they handle work injuries. To get a response i finally conducted a sit-in in the reception area, refusing to leave until I spoke with some one. Eventually the director of the clinic came downstairs. While pleasant, she showed zero interest in the special needs of injured workers, and in investigating them further.
My several contacts with the Health Resources and Services Administration, the federal agency responsible for providing financial and technical assistance to community health clinics, revealed that this agency has little interest in addressing the special needs of injured workers.

Access to medical care denied by ID requirements

Something that American citizens take for granted — picking up your medical prescription at the pharmacy. Not so if your personal ID is iffy and the state is trying to crack down on medication abuses. This case is from Mississippi.
The state began to insist on personal identification to crack down on drug abuse and by failing to educate pharmacies made life more complicated for innocent undocumented workers. Mississippi recognizes the right of work-injured undocumented workers to protections of the workers compensation system. It introduced drug procedures to help in fraud and abuse control.

Continue reading Access to medical care denied by ID requirements

serious worker injuries by ethnic group, job and diagnosis

A commentor wrote to ask if I have for work fatalities of immigrants a breakdown by types of jobs, particular immigrant group most effected, etc. I have an indirect positive answer to this question, in the form of an ethnic analysis of work related hospitalizations. Researchers published in October 2005 a study of work related hospitalizations by ethnic groups in Massachusetts.
According to the authors,

This article reports on the use of statewide hospital discharge data to describe patterns of serious occupational injuries (that is, injuries requiring hospitalization) among racial and ethnic groups in Massachusetts.

The authors present a breakdown of hospitalizations by medical diagnosis, job and ethnic breakdown: white, black, Asian, American Indian, Hispanic, and other or unknown. They were able to show a relationship between the type of job and the type of injury (for instance: burns = restaurant work).
In a later posting I will summerize their findings.

IL Governor supports Panel on Latino Work Safety

In late 2005 Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois gave his support to the findings and recommendations of a Panel on Latino Workplace Injuries and Fatalities. I will be delivering more information in the future about this panel, the first such major state panel on immigrant work safety to my knowledge. It is a model for other states to emulate.
Go here for the 11/9/05 press release.
According to the press release the Panel’s top five recommendations are:

Creating a Worker Safety Fund to support a collaborative partnership and outreach strategy statewide between community-based organizations and government agencies to, among other things, develop worker safety materials in Spanish and provide health and safety training in Spanish.

Streamlining and coordinating government services for workers and business in the state by relocating the On-Site Safety and Health Consultation team to the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) from the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO).

Strengthening enforcement of the existing Day Labor Services Act, including increased penalties against unlawful day labor agencies, and allowing workers to sue employers for damages.

Developing a statewide data collection system to help centralize and analyze occupational injury and fatality data among Latinos gathered by agencies, community-based organizations, and educational institutions and convene in annual conferences to assess and review data.

Supporting further reforms to the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act, including 1) establishing a stop-work order when an employer is uninsured; 2) establishing an injured workers’ benefit fund; 3) providing workers’ compensation to agricultural workers; and 4) ensuring adequate workers’ compensation coverage at worksites that use temporary labor.