|
Injured Workers
INJURED & DISABLED WORKERS
NOTE: This page attempts to consolidate information previously posted in several places on this website so that INJURED WORKERS can more easily find resources they need. However, there may be other places on this website that have information that could be useful to injured workers - so we urge you to explore the website. If you come to this consolidated page from the original place where the material was posted, you will be jumped to this page and then can use the back button to get back to the page on which you began.
This page is divided into several parts. If you click on the headings just below, you will jump to each part:
ACTION ALERTS:
SOME BASICS - links to other parts of this website that may be of interest to injured workers:
RESOURCES & LINKS:
- ATTORNEY RESOURCES
- HOW TO SELECT AN ATTORNEY? - If you need an attorney, read our WORKSAFE! advice on working with attorneys by clicking on these links:
- What Do Lawyers Do?
- What Role Should You Play?
- Tips for Picking an Attorney
- Attorney Fees
- State Bar of California - CERTIFIED SPECIALISTS - click here and enter the type of law (Workers' Comp) and your County for a list of certified specialists in your area
- California Applicants' Attorneys Association - click here to get a list of workers' comp attorneys who are members of the CAAA in your area. At the top of the webpage is a box for an attorney search. Enter your zip code or a nearby zip code (the system seems to produce the names of attorneys with offices in the zip code that begins with the same first 3 numbers - for example, you can enter 94000 and get every attorney with an office with a zip code that begins with 940, or enter 94100 and get every attorney with an office with a zip code that begins with 941)
- Click here for the CAAA analysis of SB 899. As well, please click here to link to the CAAA site where injured workers can tell their legislators how the new law affects them.
- CAOC - Consumer Attorneys of California
- Watsonville Law Center - click here for their web site
- The Agricultural Workers? Access to Health Project
A collaborative with California Rural Legal Assistance, Salud para la Gente and Applied Survey Research, this project provides outreach, education, legal and medical clinics, and direct representation to agricultural and low-wage workers in the tri-county area who have experienced a work injury or illness.
- Workplace Injury Litigation Group
- Free Legal Assistance for Low-Income Workers - 2 page handout of non-profits that offer free legal assistance primarily regarding wage claims to eligible low-income workers. These programs might also assist injured workers. Click here for the leaflet.
- LawHelpCalifornia.org - Provides information on legal aid services by topic and location.
- GOVERNMENT RESOURCES
- Federal government resources - There is a federal government website for disability-related information and resources. Click here. It has a new feature, a state and local resources map, designed to assist visitors in finding disability-related information in their own states and localities. To use the new state and local resources map, simply select one of the nine subject tabs - benefits, civil rights, community life, education, employment, health, housing, technology or transportation - at the top of any DisabilityInfo.gov page. Then click the map on the right sidebar to find links in that subject area related to your state, and you will be directed to easy-to-navigate information and numerous organizations and contacts.
- State of California - Division of Workers' Compensation - Information and Assistance
- Click here for the Information & Assistance Unit of the Division of Workers' Comp is in the Department of Industrial Relations of the State of California. This is the government unit that helps injured workers who do NOT have an attorney. They will not assist you if you have an attorney.
- Click here for I&A Fact Sheets and Guides for Injured Workers. This includes FAQs as well as very specific guides on how to handle various aspects of a work comp case (for the unrepresented worker).
- Click here for a flyer in English and click here for a list in English of the times and locations of I&A Injured Worker Workshops as well as their offices.
- Presione aquí para un folleto en español y Presione aquí para una lista en español de las horas y lugares de los Talleres para los I&A Obreros Lastimados así como sus oficinas.
- State of California - Division of Workers' Compensation - Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation (CHSWC)
- Click here for the CHSWC site which has numerous policy and reasearch papers and other resources including training materials
- State of California - Division of Workers' Compensation - click here for the main page
- INJURED WORKER ORGANIZATIONS
- MEDICAL RESOURCES
- Who will Treat the Injured Worker?
- Pre-Designating Your Personal Physician by Juliann Sum
- Form Frees You from your Company Doctor. To see your own physician, if you are part of a specified group of workers that have a healtyh plan, you may pre-designated, but must inform your employer in WRITING before you are injured.
- Occupational Medicine & Physicians Organizations
- Common Conditions
- ASTHMA - click here for some resources
- REPETITIVE MOTION INJURIES - click here to jump to the Ergonomics section listed in OSH Hazard
- Click here to jump to the OSH Resources and Links section of this website for more detailed lists of university-based clinics for workers and training entities
- Toxic information - click here for some info from the ATSDR Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
- HazMap - this website lets you specify an industrial process and then chose the health outcomes (e.g. cancer, lung toxicity) for which you want detailed information. It will list chemicals used in that industrial sector that have that characteristic. Very useful site.
- Haz-Map This is an occupational toxicology database designed for medical professional, IHs, etc. to assist them in the recognition of diseases caused by toxic chemicals. Haz-Map links jobs to hazardous job tasks which are linked to occupational diseases and their symptoms. It is a relational database of chemicals, jobs and diseases. The focus is on preventable occupational diseases including contact dermatitis, asthma, the pneumoconioses (e.g., asbestosis), hypersensitivity pneumonitis, inhalation fever, and heavy metal poisoning. Diseases that affect the blood, liver and nervous system, usually occurring as the result of industrial spills or confined space accidents, are also covered.
- SELF HELP RESOURCES
- Who will Treat the Injured Worker?
- Pre-Designating Your Personal Physician by Juliann Sum
- Form Frees You from your Company Doctor. To see your own physician, if you are part of a specified group of workers that have a healtyh plan, you may pre-designated, but must inform your employer in WRITING before you are injured.
- Can I represent myself?
- State of California - Division of Workers' Compensation - Information and Assistance
- Click here for a flyer in English and click here for a list in English of the times and locations of I&A Injured Worker Workshops as well as their offices.
- Presione aquí para un folleto en español y Presione aquí para una lista en español de las horas y lugares de los Talleres para los I&A Obreros Lastimados así como sus oficinas.
- The Information & Assistance Unit of the Division of Workers' Comp is in the Department of Industrial Relations of the State of California. This is the government unit that helps injured workers who do NOT have an attorney. They will not assist you if you have an attorney.
- NOLO PRESS - California Workers' Comp - this is a reasonably priced book that helps you represent yourself in the workers' comp system; click here to see other Nolo Press employment law self help books
- Working Immigrants weblog by Peter Rousmaniere (a work comp specialist)
KEEPING UP WITH THE LAW:
There have been substantial changes recently in the workers' compensation laws. You will want to educate yourself about the law.
- LEGISLATION
- Click here to jump to the Worksafe webpage with current legislative proposals on workers' compensation. The 2005-2006 legislative session is over. We will be archiving the legislation from that session shortly and will post new legislative proposals when the new legislative session begins at the end of 2006 or beginning of 2007.
- Click here for the CAAA (California Applicants Attorneys Association analysis of SB 899
- Click here for the LOHP Navigator analysis of important changes to workers' compensation law as a result of SB 899
- REGULATIONS
- LEGAL OPINIONS
TRAINING MATERIAL:
- LOHP Training Material - NAVIGATOR Training
- UC Berkeley Labor Occupational Health Program - Workers' Compensation. Click here for the LOHP page on workers' compensation resources. Click here for specifics about the next Navigator Workshop.
- The LOHP website covers the following topics. Please get to these topics through their webpage to assure that you have the most accurate material.
- State of California - Division of Workers' Compensation - Commission on Health and Safety and Workers? Compensation (CHSWC)
- Click here for the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers? Compensation (CHSWC) - this site has numerous policy and reasearch papers and other resources including training materials
- State of California - Division of Workers' Compensation - Information & Assistance (I&A)
- Click here for a flyer in English and click here for a list in English of the times and locations of I&A Injured Worker Workshops as well as their offices.
- Presione aquí para un folleto en español y Presione aquí para una lista en español de las horas y lugares de los Talleres para los I&A Obreros Lastimados así como sus oficinas.
- The Information & Assistance Unit of the Division of Workers' Comp is in the Department of Industrial Relations of the State of California. This is the government unit that helps injured workers who do NOT have an attorney. They will not assist you if you have an attorney.
- WORKSAFE! Training Material
- Click here for scheduled WorkSafe trainings
- TRAINING on Workers' Compensation
- TRAINING on Discrimination and Retaliation Against Injured Workers: Labor Code Section 132a Petitions and other remedies
- Newsletter articles
MEDIA:
-
DOL Claims on Worker Safety Challenged - LHSFNA - Vol. IX, No. 3) - OSHA's assertion last year that rates had dropped a whopping 19 percent since 2001 provoked a flurry of fact-checking. Now, it appears that the "decline" in injuries and illness is almost exclusively the result of changes in injury and illness reporting requirements.
-
-
-
-
-
-
- The Erosion of Worker Safety - article from The Boston Globe on the poor status of Massachusett's worker safety system - Peter Rousmaniere (Op Ed) - January 4, 2006
- Labor Union Suing Over New Workers' Comp Formula - Deborah Lohse - San Jose Mercury News - May 5, 2005
- Workers' Comp Costs Questioned - Insurers haven't passed most of their savings on to the state's employers, Garamendi says - Marc Lifsher - LA Times - April 26, 2005
- From Injury to Insult - Mark Lifsher - LA Times - March 28, 2005
POLICY & RESEARCH:
-
California's Diability Benefits Far Below the National Average (Hearing Loss in One Ear) - click here for a PDF of the graph.
-
Click here for a PDF or click here for a direct link in html to Uncompensated wage loss for injured workers with permanent disabilities, the third report of the Division of Workers' Compensation study of wage loss for permanently disabled workers. The report details wage loss experienced by disabled workers in recent years, along with comparisons of permanent disability rating information, by part of body, under the 1997 and 2005 permanent disability rating schedules, and is part of a three phase research initiative designed to evaluate the effects of the 2005 permanent disability rating schedule (PDRS).
-
Click here for an article on this study by VotersInjuredAtWork.org
-
Click here to link to the online forum where this report was posted and where you can leave comments for the DWC until June 28.
-
Click here for the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation (CHSWC) - this site has numerous policy and research papers and other resources
-
Workers' Compensation: A Cautionary Tale - Center for Justice & Democracy (September 2006) "This paper take a close look at what has contributed to the colossal failure of this program and will examine a few states' legislative battles that illustrate recent disturbing trends in the system. It is crucial to take a hard look at workers' compensation not only because hard-working Americans are being left out in the cold, but also because lawmakers are looking to use this system as a model to create more programs in other areas - a recipe for disaster."
-
Click here for two articles written by Katherine Torres and Steve Painter about this report.
-
-
Costs of Work-Related Harms Underestimated but Soaring - OMB Watch - summarizes the article above (June 27, 2005)
Abstract - a recent report by Liberty Mutual (an insurance company) shows the cost of serious workplace injuries has skyrocketed in recent years - increased by 12.1% between 1998 and 2002, half of that increase in 2002.
-
-
Occupational Medicine: The Case For Reform
Am J Prev Med 2005;28(4):396-402 - by Joseph LaDou, M.D., Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA 94143-0924
Abstract: The specialty of occupational medicine is in peril, in large part because of its reliance on financing by industry, which has powerful incentives to limit costs and to favor physicians who are useful to their employers. Occupational physicians generally practice within the framework of the workers' compensation system. Serious flaws in the incentive structure of workers' compensation constrain objectivity in their practice. Under present law they are unavoidably subject to perverse influences from employers and insurance companies. A fundamental reform of workers' compensation law and practice is urgently needed to separate occupational physicians from the control of employers and workers' compensation insurers, whose interests should not be allowed to override the physicians' integrity or to compromise the specialty.
-
A Bill of Rights for Injured Workers - Workers' Compensation Policy Review. May/June 2005. by Ed Welch. A copy of this article is not available at the moment. Summary: The recommendations are as follows (as summarized by Peggy Sugarman of Voters Injured at Work):
1. Benefits should replace 80% of the after-tax wage loss for work injuries.
2. Address "myths" with real research by finding out what happens to workers with job injuries.
3. Increases in benefit levels should be tied to the increases of uninjured workers. (Note: California did adopt this method of "indexing" in earlier reforms, tying it to the Statewide Average Weekly Wage).
4. Do not lower permanent disability benefits based on pre-existing conditions which allowed workers to perform the jobs in spite of them.
5. Do not lower benefits by penalizing older workers, who in some states have a difficult time getting the same level of benefits as their younger counterparts.
6. Fraud is perpetrated by all concerned, and aggressive procedures should be enacted to identify and prosecute fraud by employers, insurers and agents, including civil and criminal penalties.
7. Require employers to immediately pay what they clearly owe.
8. Penalize employers who unfairly deny the payment of benefits and establish incentives for those who pay promptly.
9. State agencies should promptly resolve disputes and make preliminary decisions on the payment of benefits pending the outcome of litigation.
10. Give all parties access to effective legal representation.
11. Don't allow employers to withhold needed healthcare while a workers' compensation dispute is being litigated. (Note: SB 899 contained a provision that requires the immediate payment of medical treatment up to $10,000 until the claims is denied.)
ARCHIVED MATERIAL:
- Conferences
- Labor's Conference on Workers' Compensation - October 20 & 21, 2005- co-sponsored by the Michigan State AFL-CIO and the School of Labor and Industrial Relations at Michigan State University with the assistance of the Safety & Health Department of the AFL-CIO in Washington DC. This conference will bring together labor leaders from across the country to build a new positive agenda for restoring the rights of men and women who are injured on the job. Click here for information about the program and a registration form. If you have any questions, contact Edward M Welch at welche@msu.edu or (517) 432-7727.
 Printer-Friendly Page
|
|
|
|
