Articles Posted in Workers’ Compensation Benefits

Officials with the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development (EOLWD) recently announced that the preliminary statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) indicate the state of Massachusetts was able to add more than 9,000 jobs in the month of October and that the total unemployment rate was roughly 7 percent. .

Since December of last year, employers in the state of Massachusetts have added more than 52,000 jobs in the private sector.

Our workers’ compensation lawyers in Massachusetts understand that there were close to 4,500 fatal occupational injuries to private sector wage and salary workers, government workers, and self-employed workers last year. Because of a lack in funding and as a result of the government shutdown back in October, officials with the BLS had to redo the estimates of these fatal accidents. Recently, officials with the EOLWD had to re-report on the August and September statistics.
Continue reading

Hearing loss can occur after an accident or over time. Many senior citizens realize that their hearing is not what it used to be and sense that they are not hearing every sound or pitch. For many workers who are exposed to loud noise over the course of their career, new developments in the battle against hearing loss are bringing hope. Researchers are taking a new direction when studying noise-induced hearing loss in hopes to bring some hope and relief to those who suffer hearing loss.

Workers in construction, industry, or bars and other loud environments could be exposed to levels of noise that threaten the loss of hearing. Our Boston workers’ compensation attorneys understand the gravity and impact of hearing loss. We are dedicated to helping workers’ and their families collect compensation and find relief after permanent hearing loss. Our legal team is also abreast of research that may be a step in the right direction for treating and repairing noise-induced hearing loss.
Continue reading

Hearing loss is one of the most common injuries sustained while on the job. When an employee is exposed to significant levels of noise, employers must make sure to take precautions to prevent hearing damage. Employers, companies and regulators will often consult with healthcare professionals who know how to best treat and prevent injuries.

A recent article suggests that Occupational Hazard nurses play a critical role in helping prevent workplace injuries, including hearing damage. Occupational Hazard safety experts and managers are available to help guide employers and regulators to help implement noise control policies, protocols, and procedures. Workers who suffer from hearing loss because of job related duties are entitled to collect compensation for any temporary or permanent injury they suffer. Our Boston workers’ compensation attorneys are experienced with employer responsibility and in helping victims recover after a workplace injury.

It is widely known that exposure to noise can cause hearing damage. Workers may suffer hearing damage from a few instances of over-exposure or a lifetime of long-term exposure to excessive noise. Workers who are in industrial settings, including factories or construction work are at the greatest risk of hearing damage. There are other industries that pose a risk, including the entertainment industry, such as employment at concerts, clubs, or in restaurants. New research suggests that the use of personal hearing devices, including iPods and iPhones or MP3 players can also cause permanent hearing damage over time.

Hearing loss caused by occupational exposure has been studied and acknowledged since the 18th century. Later studies found that there was a very direct correlation between work and occupational noise-induced hearing loss (ONIHL). Since the dangers of hearing loss have been uncovered by scientific research, additional studies have tried to identify what measurements of sound produce the greatest damage.

Current regulations passed under the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974 require that employers protect the hearing of their employees. The law states that employers must professionally assess the noise hazards in the work space and provide necessary equipment and information to workers to help them avoid exposures at high noise levels. There are some noise levels that are so severe that workers are not allowed to be exposed at all.

An Occupational Hazard nurse can help assist as part of a collaborative effort to identify and manage noise in the workplace. By taking the time to understand a specific industry, an OH nurse can also work with employers, individuals, and other specialists to develop procedures, control measures, and equipment to prevent noise exposure. Since employers have a legal duty to understand the exposure faced by employees, they will also benefit from collaborating with noise experts who can help identify and address excessive noise in the workplace.

Occupational deafness is a disease recognized under the disability benefit system. Any victim of noise exposure who suffers from permanent hearing damage is entitled to workers’ compensation. If you or someone you love is suffering from partial or total hearing loss, it is important to seek medical treatment and diagnosis as soon as possible. Time is of the essence and filing an immediate workers’ compensation claim is also an important step to recovering the benefits you deserve.
Continue reading

Throughout the region, workers who suffer from injury while on the job are entitled to file workers’ compensation claims for injuries. Families who have lost their loved ones to work-related accidents are also entitled to claims. In the recent workplace safety news, OSHA has cited a New Hampshire automobile company for repeat safety violations and a Maine sawmill company for repeat and serious violations of workplace safety standards.

OSHA violations are often evidence used in negligence cases. OSHA is often called upon to inspect premises after an accident or injury or if there are internal reports of safety violations. Monro Muffler Brake Inc. has been cited for “willful, repeat, and serious” workplace violations in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The automotive repair and tire chain business now faces more than $221,000 in OSHA fines. The Maine sawmill company will be fined over $79,000 in penalties. Our Boston workers’ compensation attorneys are dedicated to helping victims and their families protect their rights involving unsafe working conditions.

The New Hampshire OSHA inspection initiated as a complaint. During the inspection, OSHA officials discovered that employees were exposed to potential electric shock from exposed and energized wires in the restroom. OSHA also found that the company did not correct these conditions, even after the issues were brought to light after an in-house safety inspection. There were also five repeat citations issued for defective ladders and issues with hazardous materials. Other citations were issued for obstructed exit routes, improper storage, and improper disposal of hazardous and combustible materials. These are considered serious violations because they could cause death or bodily harm.

A spokesperson for OSHA claimed that the New Hampshire company’s pattern of noncompliance with existing OSHA standards puts employees at risk. According to the agency, a repeat violation exists when the employer has been cited for a similar violation on a prior occasion. In this case, the employer had been cited several times at different locations throughout the regions. In addition to the fines, OSHA is requiring that the company take corrective measures to protect employees from the workplace hazards.

OSHA has fined the Maine sawmill company, NC Hunt Inc. for three repeat violations and seven serious violations of workplace safety standards after an inspection that initiated in November of 2012. According to OSHA reports, the repeat violations included failing to use energy control procedures that would prevent employees from being struck by logging carriers. The company also failed to install barriers and warning signs to prevent entry towards the logging path. These citations were similar to violations reported in 2009.

A spokesperson from OSHA stated that the safety violations exposed employees to falls and the potential to be struck by machinery. The company will be assessed additional penalties for those violations that were repeat and those that were serious. Serious violations included the use of an industrial work truck with a defective emergency break. The company also failed to use machine guarding to prevent employee contact with the moving parts of a saw. The inspection also turned up issues with a grinder, an ungrounded extension cord and incomplete energy control procedures.

The goal of OSHA is to ensure workplace safety and to hold employers accountable for safety violations. Any serious violation means that there is a substantial probability that an employee could suffer serious injury or death. Victims of workplace accident or injury are entitled to workers’ compensation as well as additional third-party claims in the event of negligent. If you or someone you love was injured in a workplace accident, an experienced advocate can review your claims and pursue the full compensation you are entitled to. OSHA violations can be used as evidence of negligence to support a personal injury claim against a contractor, property owner, or manufacturer.
Continue reading

A wide range of government leaders, investors, religious organizations and worker safety advocates are urging action from large clothing manufacturers such as Walmart, Gap and Benetton if more isn’t done to bolster working conditions in garment factories overseas.

Our Boston workers’ compensation lawyers know that the outrage stems from the collapse of an eight-story factory building, where clothing destined for the U.S. was being manufactured. The death toll has reached well over 1,000 at this point, with the dramatic and heart-wrenching rescue of one woman 17 days after the tragedy making headlines worldwide.

While many here in the U.S. see worker advocacy as something that is not always a high priority, situations like this should give us all pause. This is the kind of thing that can happen when we place our trust in corporations to prioritize worker safety.

Yes, this happened in a foreign country, but they are U.S. companies that clearly know better. They are held to a different standard for their workers in the U.S. – which is precisely why they seek to set up operations in foreign countries, where the workplace safety requirements are far more lax and expenses are therefore much cheaper. In the end, as in so many other workplace tragedies, we see once again that greed trumps safety.

It’s encouraging to see that nearly 1 million signatures have already been collected on a petition urging Gap and H&M to sign commitments to improve fire safety plans in other Bangladesh factories. Additionally, religious groups controlling some $100 billion in assets have collectively penned a letter expressing displeasure with U.S. retailers on this front.

There are nearly 3 million garment workers employed by U.S. companies in Bangladesh, and not nearly enough is being done to protect them. The government of Bangladesh is being accused of working together with these large corporations to suppress labor unions, curb worker rights and diminish safety standards.

The country has the lowest minimum wage in the world, at $37 monthly.

We wish it hadn’t taken such a significant loss of life to gain the attention of the international community on this issue. Up until now, the primary voice of advocacy had come from non-governmental organizations, who hold little power in the marketplace.

The incident occurred just two months after a fire in another Bangladesh factory killed 112 workers.

At the same time, it highlights the importance of prioritizing and investing in worker safety standards and rights domestically.

In Massachusetts last year, 32 workers were killed on the job. Another 320 passed away from an occupational disease. Another 1,800 were diagnosed with an occupational disease and 50,000 more sere seriously injured.

If we think a tragedy like Bangladesh is too distant, let us not forget the recent fertilizer plant explosion in Texas, the oil rig blasts off the Gulf of Mexico and the mine deaths in West Virginia.

We should do better. We can do better.
Continue reading

When the weather gets warm, there is one thing you can count on: construction. Construction workers hit the roads in the spring and summer to make needed improvements and repairs to private and commercial properties, as well as to improve infrastructure in Boston and throughout the United States. Construction work on government roads, private buildings and commercial establishments and the amount of work being done significantly increases right along with the temperature.

Our Boston construction accident lawyers know that these workers put their lives at risk on a daily basis. Roadside construction sites are dangerous, as are any construction zones. Several accidents have already occurred this year, leaving construction workers dead with grieving family members left behind. In light of these accidents, it is very important for construction workers and for employers to take a few minutes to think about the risks of construction work and about the ways to minimize those risks.

Construction Accidents
Construction accidents happen every day. In fact, just recently, the Boston Herald reported that a Connecticut worker was killed when working on a Massachusetts Transportation Department facility located in North Hampton.

The victim who was killed was a 56-year-old man. He became pinned in between two modular office units that he and other workers were in the process of constructing. The temporary buildings were being put together when one of the units shifted, pinning the victim. Tragically, the man who was killed left behind a wife and three children. One other worker was also injured due to the building shift and was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

This accident occurred within days of a Boston construction worker losing his life in a New York accident. In that case, WCVB reported that the Boston worker was working on a construction site in upstate New York. He became pinned under a 40-foot-pipe that dislodged as it was being unloaded from a flatbed tractor-trailer. The pipe weight 1,7000 pounds and crushed the 24-year-old worker who had been guiding the pipe using a guide rope as it was lifted by a steel-cabled excavator.

Staying Safe
Both of these tragic accidents involved a loss of life due to workers being crushed. Unfortunately, crushing accidents are not the only ones likely to occur in work zones as more people complete construction trough the warmer summer weather. Ultimately, the only way that any worker will be safer from being crushed or otherwise injured will be to ensure that working conditions are as safe as possible.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) conducts periodic inspections of worksites. Unfortunately, OSHA cannot be everywhere all the time and employers need to step up and do the right thing. Providing appropriate safety gear; ensuring workers are adequately trained; and complying with all OSHA regulations can help to save lives.
Continue reading

Our Boston workers’ compensation attorneys have been closely following the developments surrounding the introduction of the Protecting America’s Workers Act, would would provide a much-needed update to the Occupational Safety & Health Act of 1970.

The Center for Public Integrity, which has been thorough in its ongoing series on the gaps of workplace safety oversight and protections, reports that perhaps the most substantial part of this legislation is that it would increase the enforcement power of the Occupational Safety & Health Administration.

So for example, let’s say a company that is involved in a willful violation – that is, one in which its superiors knew or should have known the dangers – and that violation leads to a death. As it stands right now, the employer could face a misdemeanor charge that would result in a maximum six months in prison. In the state of Massachusetts, you would face more jail time for illegally betting on a horse than you would for violating a safety law that results in a worker’s death.

This federal bill, if passed, would change that.

Instead of a misdemeanor, this kind of violation would be a felony, which would be punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The other thing this bill would do is increase civil penalties. That’s something that hasn’t been done in nearly 25 years. This is important because the fine schedule hasn’t kept pace with inflation.

A serious workplace safety violation, which is one that would most likely result in serious physical harm or death, is punishable by a civil fine of up to $7,000. What the Protecting America’s Workers Act would do would be to raise that to $12,000, which would essentially just put it in line with inflation costs.

Same thing for repeat or willful violations, which right now carry a maximum fine of $70,000. That amount would be bumped up to $120,000.

Employers would still have to correct workplace dangers uncovered by federal inspectors – even if they were in the process of formally contesting the citation. Right now, that negotiation process can take years, and that means the upper hand lies with the employer. OSHA is eager to keep workers safe and the employer is just trying to bargain down the liability. OSHA usually ends up settling for costs much lower than the initial fine, simply so that the employer will move ahead with addressing the hazard.

And finally, another major thing this bill would do would be to require companies to protect ALL workers on a work site, rather than solely those that are directly employed by the firm. Hopefully, this will help to address the issue that contractor injuries, some of the most common on job sites, aren’t actually recorded or logged by the primary company doing the work. In the end, neither the government nor the public gets a clear picture of whether these workplaces are safe because, half the time, incidents that happen on site aren’t reported because the injury involved a contract worker.
Continue reading

The director of the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration, David Michaels said he would be the “first to admit” that the system currently in place to protect workers from air quality issues on the job is effectively broken.

On the one hand, our Boston workers’ compensation lawyers find it a bit refreshing to hear some honesty regarding some of the deplorable conditions that continue to exist for American employees, despite all of the funding we spend on regulation. On the other hand, this confession is deeply troubling because it means that clearly, more needs to be done to protect workers from the kinds of hazards that are posing substantial risk.

A recent story by The New York Times reveals that when it comes to workplace air quality standards, our business sector’s track record is abysmal.

Part of the reason is that it’s considered a long-term threat. It’s generally less dramatic in that the effects of such ailments take years to manifest. Most of the money OSHA spends is funneled into a quick response effort regarding dangers that are in the present, even though those slow, silent killers – asbestos, glue fumes, arsenic and lead – claim far more lives.

The agency has penned workplace safety standards for a total of 16 dangerous substances and chemicals used regularly in workplaces. But we must consider that there are literally tens of thousands of dangerous substances that workers in this country handle each and every day. Who is policing that? Usually, the employers.

When that happens, there will almost inevitably be lapses in oversight and efforts to undercut safety measures in favor of bottom line profits.

A clear-cut example of this are numerous workplaces and plants that use a dangerous chemical called nPB, or n-propyl bromide. Tens of thousands of workers in manufacturing industries such as high-tech electronics, dry cleaning and auto body have come in contact with this chemical. What’s especially troubling is that even though chemical companies and government officials have warned that long-term exposure to nPB has the propensity to cause infertility and neurological damage, companies aren’t doing enough to shield workers from these hazards. In fact, use of this substance has gone up by more than 15 times what it was just six years ago.

In the case of a furniture manufacturer in North Carolina, the chemical was used in spray gluing guns. Ventilation was reportedly poor. Yet even when workers began to fall ill, and even after federal officials determined that the levels of nPB exposure weren’t safe, the company allegedly failed to provide respirators and fans meant to vent fumes were still turned off, to save on electricity costs.

The company has said that alternatives to nPB aren’t any safer and in some cases, are more dangerous.

Toxic air on the job is accountable for a host of chronic ailments that affect some 200,000 workers in the U.S. every year. Those include mesothelioma, stonecutter’s disease, asbestosis, black lung, pneumoconiosis and grinder’s rot.

To put this into perspective, about 40,000 people in this country every year die before their time because of their exposure to dangerous substances at work. That is 10 times the number of workers who die in mine collapses or refinery explosions or other similar instances that garner far more public attention.
Continue reading

In the summer of 2010, three teenage workers were hired to help sift out chunks of wet corn in a grain silo in Illinois.

Our Boston workers’ compensation lawyers understand that all three were buried alive. Only one survived – and even then, only by inches after a bucket that had been placed over his head by a firefighter to keep the corn from obstructing his breaths.

One of the victims was just 14 years-old.

None were wearing or had been instructed to wear proper safety harnesses for the work they were doing.

It’s the kind of accident we think of as being isolated and perhaps only occurring in the Midwest. But the fact is, the grain storage business is booming, according to a recent investigative piece by the Center for Public Integrity. In fact, Massachusetts has several grain storage facilities throughout the state.

CPI, along with a team from NPR, reviewed years’ worth of OSHA data and discovered that 180 people had died in grain entrapments in commercial facilities between 1984 and 2012. These sites included bins, but also rail cars and other locations where large amounts of grains are kept.

In cases of death, initial fines proposed by OSHA were in the neighborhood of more than $9 million. Eventually, though, those fines were slashed by nearly 60 percent as the cases were ultimately settled. The five largest fines ever received in such cases ranged from $530,000 up to $1.5 million after being but by 50 to 98 percent.

The case involving the three teens in Illinois resulted in a $200,000 fine – after OSHA reduced it by nearly 65 percent. The family-owned company also agreed to get out of the business and to notify the federal agency if they went back into it so strict oversight controls could be implemented.

For a company that earned $6.5 million in federal farm subsidies from 1995 to 2011. A $200,000 fine seems like hardly a drop in the bucket.

The teens had been hired to break up the rotten hunks of corn that were clogging the flow of the crop into the center of the bin. the 14-year-old reportedly trained the other two older teens. An older farm worker stopped by later in the day to instruct them to stay away from the center of the bin.

There was no safety training. Harnesses were unused in the shed next door.

When one of the farm workers opened one of the holes in the bottom of the bin to help improve the corn’s flow, it turned disastrous, with the corn effectively turning into a kind of quicksand. The young trio were quickly swallowed up. The surviving teen said he watched before his eyes as his best friend said the Lord’s prayer and then breathed his last.

Among OSHA’s finding of numerous safety violations was that the 14-year-old should never have been doing such high-risk farm work in the first place. Federal law prohibits workers under the age of 16 from entering confined environments or spaces. That includes grain storage bins.

OSHA reports that young workers in particular are at grave risk for suffocation hazards in grain bins. In 2010, a total of six workers under the age of 16 were involved in grain bin accidents. Five of them died.

These incidents are especially perilous, usually involving numerous deaths, as more than one worker is often inside the bin. Workers attempt to rescue one another and become trapped themselves.
Continue reading