“Sixteen workers are killed a day in the United States because of reckless negligence on the part of their employers,” according to a new Web site.

The statement on the home page of 16deathsperday.com goes on to say, “Under existing laws, these employers get a slap on the wrist, or walk away scot-free. Meanwhile, workers who blow the whistle face threats and retaliation at the workplace.”

A five-minute video profiles two workplace fatalities where companies paid relatively small fines and didn’t face criminal prosecution.

The group’s message: Companies would rather pay low OSHA fines rather than spend more money on worker safety.

To change that, the Web site endorses passage of the Protecting America’s Workers Act. That bill would:

• allow OSHA to pursue criminal charges against a company for an employee’s death, including fines and up to 10 years in prison for owners and managers. Criminal penalties for serious bodily injury to an employee could include up to five years in prison.
• increase the civil penalty for an employee death from $50,000 to $250,000, with a minimum $25,000 fine for companies with 25 or fewer employees
• raise the maximum fines for willful and repeat citations to $120,000, and
• increase OSHA fines every four years for inflation.

What do you think of 16deathsperday.com’s message? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

An employee is injured while playing volleyball. He files for workers’ comp, saying it was part of his job. His employer disagrees, saying it wasn’t part of his tasks. Does the employee in this case get comp?

Here are the details:

Sean Murphy worked at a fitness facility as a fitness supervisor.

One day while at work, a co-worker asked him to participate in a game of wallyball (volleyball on a racquetball court).

At first he declined, but the co-worker, who wasn’t his supervisor, insisted, saying without him, the game couldn’t go forward “because they didn’t have enough people to participate.”

He agreed to play, and when he jumped up to block a shot, he came down and injured his right leg.

He underwent surgery to repair a fracture.

Since one of his duties was to promote and implement the classes and programs that his employer offered, he filed for workers’ comp.

An arbitrator awarded him comp benefits. The employer appealed for these reasons:

• Murphy had no duties in the racket sports department
• Wallyball wasn’t within Murphy’s responsibilities
• His supervisor never ordered or directed him to play or participate
• The center had a policy prohibiting employees from playing while they were on duty, and
• Playing wallyball was a voluntary recreational activity.

A state court upheld Murphy’s comp benefits, saying his participation in the game “clearly benefited the business of operating a health facility and [Murphy] clearly believed the activity was part of his work duties.”

The court said Murphy’s situation was similar to that of a pro athlete: Recreational activity was part of his job.

What’s your opinion of the court’s decision? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Cite: Elmhurst Park District v. Sean T. Murphy, Appellate Court of IL, No. 07-MR-947, 10/6/09. (PDF)

As states pass non-smoking laws, fewer service employees are exposed to customers’ second-hand smoke. But should companies be liable for their workers who still encounter it on the job? Some businesses are facing lawsuits.

Lawyers have filed two class-action lawsuits against Las Vegas casinos, alleging that the health of employees is being affected by second-hand smoke.

The latest lawsuit is against the Wynn Las Vegas. The first one was against Caesars Palace.

Caesars hasn’t filed its answer to the lawsuit. Wynn Las Vegas didn’t respond to a request for comment by the Las Vegas Sun.

The suit says the smoke is causing employees to suffer eye irritation, coughing, sore throat, sneezing, shortness of breath, dizziness, wheezing, tightness in the chest, asthma, headache, nausea, and ingestion of cancer-causing chemicals and toxins.

Lawyers for the casino workers claim some Las Vegas properties have taken measures to minimize second-hand smoke on their gaming floors. The Bellagio has a high-tech air filtration system. The Palazo built smoke-free corridors and half of its gaming area is non-smoking.

The suit also charges that Wynn employees risk losing their jobs if they complain about the second-hand smoke.

The suit seeks an order requiring Wynn “to take reasonable measures to protect its employees from second-hand smoke” and unspecified costs and attorney’s fees.

The suit against Caesars notes that the Palace and its sister properties, Bally’s and Paris, were part of a study released in May by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

The study found that casino dealers had traces of a tobacco-specific carcinogen in their urine. The NIOSH study said, “The increase in [a known lung carcinogen] in the urine of most non-poker casino dealers at the end of their work shift demonstrates that non-poker casino dealers are exposed to a known carcinogen in the tobacco smoke at the casinos. The best means of eliminating workplace exposure … is to ban all smoking in the casinos.”

What do you think about the lawsuit? Should a court be able to order a business to go smoke-free? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Employees across the country have a message for their co-workers during this H1N1 flu season: Don’t come in if you’re sick.

A survey shows 91% of Americans said they want their co-workers to remain at home if they’re infected with H1N1.

And those workers have support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The agency recommends people with flu stay home until their temperature drops below 100°F without pain relievers for 24 hours to reduce its spread.

Other findings from the Mansfield Communications survey of 2,029 Americans:

• 69% of workers said they’d received no communication about policies in the workplace pertaining to H1N1
• 84% believe the recession creates more pressure to show up for work, even if they feel sick
• 47% said they’d still engage in public activities (riding the bus, picking up a prescription or grocery shopping) even when they were infected with H1N1 and required to stay home from work, and
• 84% were likely to report a colleague who had flu symptoms.

Recently, SafetyNewsAlert.com asked our readers how prepared they were for a swine flu outbreak:

• 52% somewhat prepared
• 29% not at all prepared
• 17% well prepared, and
• 2% don’t think swine flu will affect their company.

So if you’re like many businesses playing catch-up when it comes to flu preparedness, the federal government has a Web page with suggestions.

Now, we’d like to hear from you. What should a company’s policy be about workers who have the flu? Should they be required to stay home? What happens when so many workers are sick that it affects productivity? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

In some states, when workers are placed on permanent partial disability, it’s expected that injured employees will make a “good-faith effort” to find alternate employment they can perform. However, one state court just found a reason to overturn that 15-year precedent and allow a worker to keep collecting.

Carolyn Bergstrom worked for Spears Manufacturing Co. as a production janitor. One day, after lifting a garbage can and setting it back down, she felt pain in her back.

The next day the pain became severe, and she was reassigned to sorting parts. She was unable to do that because standing in one place caused her too much discomfort.

An orthopedic surgeon directed her to stop working and file for disability benefits. Initially, she was awarded permanent total disability by an administrative law judge (ALJ).

But the state workers’ comp board set aside that decision, and the ALJ suggested Bergstrom try to return to work. She did, and she was again assigned to the parts sorting job.  She said she wasn’t able to perform the job for more than 3 hours because of pain and went home. The company fired her.

Then her award was reduced to permanent partial disability. The state’s workers’ comp board found that Bergstrom “didn’t exercise good faith” when she failed to perform alternate job duties that her company offered her after her injury.

Bergstrom appealed.

An appeals court upheld the reduction of her award based on the “good-faith effort” doctrine that appeals courts in Kansas had applied to such cases for 15 years. In other words, a workers’ comp award could be reduced if the injured employee didn’t make a good-faith effort to seek out and accept alternate employment.

But a majority on the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the state’s workers’ comp law contained no such good-faith provision. It ruled that appeals courts in the state had ruled incorrectly for years on the matter. So in this case, it reversed the lower court’s ruling and sent it back for further consideration.

The upshot: It appears until this is corrected by an act of the Kansas legislature, employees can decide they suffer too much pain after a workplace accident, leave their job and collect benefits without looking for alternate employment.

Let us know what you think about this case in the Comments Box below.

Cite: Bergstrom v. Spears, Supreme Court of KS, No. 99,369, 9/4/09.

President Obama has signed an Executive Order banning 4.5 million employees from texting while driving.

Whose employees? The federal government’s, including the military.

Federal workers are banned, effective immediately, from text messaging when they are behind the wheel of government vehicles and from texting in their own cars if they use government-issued phones or are on official business.

The order also encourages federal contractors and others doing business with the government to do the same.

The measure comes in the wake of a meeting in Washington of 300 federal and state officials to discuss growing safety concerns about cell phone use while driving.

Along with the federal employee ban, the Obama administration plans to ban texting by bus drivers and truckers who travel across state lines and may also make it illegal for them to use cell phones while driving, except in emergencies.

Some in the trucking industry are concerned about what effect this will have on the computers thousands of long-haul truckers use in their cabs to communicate with dispatchers and do other work.

However, both Federal Express and UPS already prohibit their drivers from using these devices or other hand-held communication devices while their vehicles are in motion.

When UPS trucks are moving, they can’t receive two-way messages, according to the company.

The District of Columbia and 18 states ban texting while driving to different degrees.

One option the federal government could use to encourage more states to enact these types of laws would be to threaten their federal highway funding. The federal government used that tactic to get states to lower the legal blood-alcohol limit while driving to .08 and to increase the drinking age to 21.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 11% of drivers on the road at any given moment are using hand-held cell phones.

The Harvard Center of Risk Analysis says cell phone use is contributing to 6% of all crashes a year, resulting in 2,600 deaths and 342,000 injuries.

The National Safety Council reports several hundred companies have banned employees from using their cell phones while driving.

What should government do – or not do – to regulate use of cell phones while driving? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

If one of your employees was injured in an exercise class, you wouldn’t expect that to be covered by workers’ comp. But that’s not how one court saw it.

Frank Torre worked for Logic Technology, a company that performed on-site contracting work for General Electric.

Torre suffered a spinal cord injury while participating in an exercise class at the G.E. fitness center during work hours.

A workers’ comp law judge ruled that his injury arose out of and in the course of his employment.

Torre was off duty when he took the class and wasn’t compensated for nor required to take it.

So to receive workers’ comp, he’d have to prove that his employer sponsored the activity, which required “an affirmative act or overt encouragement by the employer to participate.”

It turns out Torre was encouraged by his employer to have a gym membership. Logic Technology offers reimbursement to its employees for half of their G.E. fitness center membership fees. But in this case, Torre didn’t even seek reimbursement for the membership.

Another factor: Torre’s job required him to develop contacts with current and prospective clients, and the company president stated that participating in the fitness class helped do that.

Not only did the comp board rule in his favor, but on appeal, the Supreme Court of New York did also.

Do you agree with the court’s decision? Since Torre was encouraged to make business contacts at the gym, did that make his workouts part of his job? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

Cite: Torre v. Logic Technology, Inc., Supreme Court, New York, No. 506423, 7/2/09. (PDF)

A diabetic employee can’t control his hypoglycemic episodes. In recent episodes, he’s become disoriented around dangerous equipment and threatened violence against co-workers. Can you fire him for safety reasons, or is he protected under disability law?

Martin Onken was a welder for McNeilus Truck & Manufacturing in Iowa. He has Type I diabetes which causes him to have occasional low blood sugar episodes – hypoglycemia.

Onken is among a small percentage of diabetics who are often unable to detect their low blood sugar from physical symptoms.

He suffered several low-blood sugar episodes at work. Co-workers would offer him a soda, candy bar or tube of glucose to bring his blood sugar back up. The company worked with Onken through several episodes and encouraged him to seek medical help to better control his condition, which he did.

However, one hypoglycemic episode in particular proved to be the last straw.

During this episode, some of Onken’s co-workers saw him staggering near his work station.

One co-worker, who was also a paramedic, approached him. Onken lifted his arm into a position that implied he was going to hit his co-worker, laughed and said, “You scared?”

When the plant supervisor approached him, Onken held his left arm back as if he was going to hit the supervisor. Onken lowered his arm, and the supervisor suggested he go to the break room. Onken cursed at the supervisor and said he wasn’t going anywhere.

Then Onken locked himself in a restroom and refused to come out. He came out of the restroom after 25 minutes.

When the co-worker who was a paramedic offered Onken a tube with glucose to bring his blood sugar back up, he knocked it out of her hand. Paramedics took Onken to the hospital.

In his report about the episode, the supervisor wrote that this time he knew those around Onken were at risk.

A doctor evaluated Onken. The doctor wrote Onken “would not be a risk to himself or others if he was able to manage his underlying medical condition without having hypoglycemic episodes. He appears to be unable to appropriately determine when he is becoming hypoglycemic and to take appropriate action.”

Based on the doctor’s report, and the company’s own observance of Onken, they fired him.

Onken sued, claiming discrimination based on his disability.

The court’s ruling: The company had a valid safety reason to fire Onken. The judges wrote that, since Onken presented a direct threat to the safety of others at the plant, he wasn’t a qualified individual with a disability as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

For more information on accommodating employees with diabetes, click here.

Cite: Onken v. McNeilus Truck & Manufacturing, Inc., U.S. District Court, N.D. Iowa, Eastern Division, No. 08-CV-2003-LRR, 7/10/09.

Workers’ comp boards and courts draw a fine line between what is and what isn’t a work-related injury that qualifies for benefits. See if you can guess how the court ruled in this case:

Michael Haley worked in a shipping yard which handled arriving and departing tractor trailers and the loading and unloading of the trucks. Part of his regular duties included climbing into and out of truck cabs.

One day at work, when he stepped into the cab of a truck, he felt a spasm in his left leg.

Haley didn’t climb the step in an unusual or awkward way, and there wasn’t anything strenuous about stepping up a total of 16 inches.

After the spasm, Haley had no strength in his leg and had trouble moving it.

Doctors diagnosed a ruptured quadriceps tendon and performed surgery quickly thereafter. Complications soon developed, causing Haley to walk with a cane for some time after the injury.

He applied for workers’ comp. The state comp commission found that he hadn’t proven his injury “arose out of” his employment and denied his claim for benefits. Haley appealed.

A state appeals court upheld the comp commission’s decision, so Haley didn’t get benefits.

Haley had argued that the 16-inch step was higher than a normal step that most people would encounter outside of work, and for that reason, he should get comp.

However, the court noted that doctors weren’t able to explain any link between Haley’s work duties and the rupture. All they were able to say is that the injury occurred at work.

“At work” isn’t necessarily good enough to qualify for workers’ comp. Case closed: The company won.

Do you think the court made the right decision? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Cite: Haley v. Springs Global U.S., Inc. and Zurich American Insurance Co., Court of Appeals of Virginia, No. 2841-08-3, 8/18/09.

Imagine this: An employee, who happens to be morbidly obese, is injured at work. Doctors say, before he has surgery to correct the workplace injury, he needs weight-loss surgery.

And, in two separate cases, courts rule that comp must cover the weight-loss surgery!

First, the case of Adam Childers. While working at Boston’s Gourmet Pizza in Indiana, he was struck by a freezer door, injuring his lower back. At the time, Childers was six feet tall and weighed 340 pounds.

A doctor said before Childers could have back fusion surgery, he needed lap-band surgery to lose weight.

A workers’ comp panel awarded him benefits to have the weight-loss surgery. His employer appealed, arguing that Childers suffered from a pre-existing health condition of morbid obesity.

However, the court said the restaurant couldn’t prove that Childers had a weight problem that impaired his health and/or required medical intervention. Case closed, he gets the surgery paid for by comp.

In the second case, Edward Sprague injured his knee at work in 1976 and reinjured it in 1999.

During that time span, Sprague’s weight went from 225 to 350 pounds.

Doctors told Sprague his weight would prevent successful treatment of the knee condition, so he sought workers’ comp benefits for weight-loss surgery.

His insurance carrier argued that the claim wasn’t compensable because the obesity wasn’t caused by his 1976 accident.

Last year a state court ruled Sprague’s bypass surgery should be paid for by workers’ comp. The court said the injury was more than a minor cause of Sprague’s need for gastric surgery.

Now, the Oregon Supreme Court has issued the last word in this case. It agrees that comp should cover the weight-loss surgery.

Should state comp laws be amended to prohibit employees from getting workers’ comp benefits to pay for weight-loss surgery in cases like these? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

A 30-minute video, made in a small town in Wales, was intended for local high school students to show them the dangers of texting and driving. But now, more than 1.5 million people have watched it on YouTube — and the general reaction by viewers is that they’ll never text and drive again.

The town of Gwent police department made the video last summer. It starts with a multi-vehicle crash caused by a young woman who was texting while driving. The first four minutes have turned up on YouTube. (Warning: The video is very violent.)

The driver is the only survivor in her car. Two of her friends die in the crash.

The video shows much more than the crash and its immediate aftermath. It also shows the future: the aftershocks that change the lives of the young survivor and her family.

In an interview with CBS News, the video’s writer and director, Peter Watkins, said, “Yes it is violent, but the reality of a fatal road accident is much more gruesome, is much more violent. My position is that if you are old enough to drive, you are old enough to want to drive, you are old enough to be aware of the real and serious risks one places yourself in every time you get behind the wheel.”

Gwent police chief constable Mick Giannasi said, “We have had e-mail after e-mail from people saying, ‘I will never ever text and drive again’ — from young people.”

Watch the video via the link above. Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below. Or, take our poll about this subject on the SafetyNewsAlert.com home page.

If you’d like more information about this video, send an e-mail to: corporate.communications@gwent.pnn.police.uk

What do you do with employees who have a history of injuries? Fire them and they may sue, but leave them on the job and they might harm themselves or others.

Now there’s a way for legally removing these people from the workplace.

Some companies conduct fitness for duty (FFD) evaluations in these situations. They’re similar to post-offer, pre-hire physical exams to determine ability to do the job. But FFDs can be done any time during employment and are broader: They determine physical, mental and emotional fitness.

A comprehensive FFD program would include:

• pre-placement medical evaluations, often done with safety-sensitive jobs
• absence management, including people who call in sick Mondays and Fridays and presenteeism, people not fully productive under stress from family issues or medication
• for-cause drug and alcohol testing, based on credible report of impairment, and
• pre-assignment clearance to new tasks or after leave due to injury or FMLA.

An FFD would withstand legal challenges if a company:

• administers it fairly across the board
• makes tests reasonable and job-related
• doesn’t make decisions on past health records, such as cancer history
• keeps test results confidential, and
• gives a disqualified employee the right to submit his or her own evidence as to fitness for duty.

For more information on FFD evaluations, click here.

Does your company use FFD evaluations? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Have you ever fired someone for violating a company safety rule? In this case, a company did just that and then found itself in court on a charge of racial discrimination.

Georgia-Pacific fired supervisor Ezra Brady for instructing an employee to use an improper lockout procedure. The plant manager claimed the result was that an energy source wasn’t isolated and employees were at risk. The company said Brady willfully violated company policy.

The company had safety rules in its employee handbook that spelled out lockout requirements.

Brady filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging that he’d been fired as a result of racial discrimination. Brady says he was fired for a first offense, while two white employees were only suspended for three days for the same offense.

When the EEOC found reasonable cause that Georgia-Pacific had racially discriminated against him, Brady filed a lawsuit against the company. G-P asked to have the case thrown out.

The court agreed to throw out Brady’s lawsuit because he didn’t prove that his employer gave preferential treatment to another employee under nearly identical circumstances.

In one situation in which a white employee was suspended, the worker was making repairs on a conveyor and reached far enough into it to have required a lock-out. The plant manager said this employee was only suspended for three days because he didn’t put any other employees in danger. The court found this didn’t qualify as a nearly identical circumstance.

In the second case, a manager and two other employees were conducting an inspection. One employee turned off a breaker to a machine. None of the three had a lock for the breaker, and the manager decided one wasn’t needed because he was supervising the situation. That manager also received a three-day suspension. Management said this case was not a willful violation of company policy because the manager thought he was doing the right thing. Once again, the court said this didn’t qualify as a nearly identical circumstance.

The take-home: Companies can enforce policies that call for firing employees for certain safety infractions. They just need to be careful that disciplinary measures are applied equally.

What does your company policy say about penalties for safety violations? Has your company ever fired someone for safety reasons? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Imagine this: A company sponsors a Family Fun night of bowling for its employees and their families to improve morale. One employee injures his back while bowling. Does he get workers’ comp because this was an employer-sponsored event?

If you’ve read up on workers’ comp cases, you may have already guessed that the answer is yes, he did get comp.

And it’s cases like this one that are prompting states to rewrite their comp laws. Tennessee just did.

In this particular case, Robert Powell, a Cedar Rapids Gazette employee, was one of 75 workers who participated in a family night of bowling sponsored by his employer.

The day after the event, he felt pain in his back and left leg. He underwent two rounds of surgery. He was placed on disability, but later lost his job because of a dispute over whether he was able to work, according to an article in the Des Moines Register.

Four years later, the Iowa Workers’ Compensation Commissioner awarded Powell more than $100,000 in benefits.

The commissioner pointed to a Supreme Court ruling that says if activities that led to an injury were for the benefit of the employer, or for the mutual benefit of the employer and worker, they should be treated as work-related.

So, should you cancel that employee picnic or your softball team? Employers get in trouble when:

• employee attendance is expected
• the event takes place during normal work hours
• uniforms promoting the company are worn, or
• transportation is provided to the event.

About one in four states have taken legislative action to limit workers’ comp awards for injuries that happen at company-sponsored events.

Tennessee’s governor signed one such piece of legislation into law in June. The new law states, “No compensation shall be allowed for an injury due to the employee’s voluntary participation in recreational, social, athletic or exercise activities (including, but not limited to, athletic events, competitions, parties, picnics and exercise programs) whether or not the employer pays some or all of the costs thereof.”

There are four exceptions:

• required participation
• participation that benefits the company in ways other than employee health or morale
• events during work hours that are part of work duties, and
• injuries due to an unsafe condition during voluntary participation using facilities designated by, furnished by or maintained by the employer, and the company had knowledge of the unsafe condition.

Should employers have to pay for employees’ injuries during company-sponsored recreational events? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Have you ever been suspicious of a workers’ comp claim? Be careful. A recent ruling appears to draw an important — and, in this case, extremely expensive — distinction between “reasonable” and what you might call “reflexive” suspicion.

The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals has upheld a $1 million punitive-damages award against a mining company accused of retaliatory discharge against a worker who’d filed a comp claim.

One key: what the jury viewed as unreasonable suspicion. It saw the company’s surveillance efforts as evidence of malicious conduct.

Specifically, the court noted, the company had “placed (the employee) under surveillance” and had “continued its surveillance” even after the employee said he could return to work.

And that was a contributing factor in the jury’s decision that the employee was “severely harmed” by the company’s actions.

The court added in a footnote: “That is not to say …  that an employer may not use surveillance techniques to investigate the veracity of an injured employee’s claim for workers’ compensation benefits.”

Maybe not, but it certainly raises questions.

Where should companies draw the line? Is routine surveillance of comp cases reasonable, or should companies have to justify their suspicions before going to such lengths? Tell us what you think in the Comment Box below.

You hear it all the time: Sedentary, overweight and out-of-shape employees can be a huge drain when it comes to health insurance, workers’ comp and other costs. Whip ‘em into shape and you’ll save, save, save!

True, but be careful. A recent court decision offers a cautionary tale.

The bottom line: An employee who suffered a spinal cord injury while exercising at a gym was awarded workers’ comp.

Now, under most circumstances, employees who get hurt in voluntary off-duty activities aren’t entitled to comp. But there are three exceptions: Comp can be awarded if an employer requires the employee to participate, compensates him or her for doing so, or sponsors the activity.

In this case, the employee was neither required nor compensated for his gym membership — though he had the option to be reimbursed for half of his membership (he chose not to take it).

And the company didn’t exactly “sponsor” the activity.

What it did was encourage the employee to participate. Why? To help develop contacts with current and prospective clients.

In affirming a lower court decision, the state Supreme Court cited two factors:  (1) The company at least offered to pay half of its employees’ membership fees; and (2) it encouraged participation as a way to further business interests.

It did not say whether either factor alone would have been enough to carry the day.

What do you think? Should you worry about crossing a line when you urge employees to lead active, healthier lifestyles? Let us know in the Comment Box below.

You have clicked, and we have listened!

Enjoy the fruits of your Web surfing labor by taking a look at your top choices from 2009!

While the year isn’t over yet, we couldn’t help but put together this list to give you a taste of what matters most to Safety Professionals.

Whether it’s killer laptops, violent snack machines, or the biggest PPE excuses, you’ll find them all here!

Top Safety Stories of 2009

1. Co-worker’s perfume made her sick: Is company liable?
2. Worker attacked by snack machine sues for comp
3. Cell phone bans to reach new levels for safety?
4. Fired employee sues, says co-worker tried to punch him
5. OSHA fines newspaper for reporter’s fall down stadium stairs
6. 5 keys to weed out injury-prone workers — legally
7. Prescribed pot compromises safety: What can employers do?
8. Best responses to 5 biggest PPE excuses
9. Woman killed by her laptop computer
10. Top 10 workplace injuries that affect the bottom line

We polled our editors of safety publications at Progressive Business and came up with this list:

10. More research on dangers of nano-particles to exposed employees. Among the new studies, one that showed long, thin carbon nanotubes exhibited the same effects as long, thin asbestos fibers when injected into mice.

9. The National Institutes of Health says the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is no longer limited to hospitals. Outbreaks of one strain — community-associated MRSA — have turned up in athletes, prison inmates, the military, daycare attendees and those who live in communal conditions such as college dormitories.

8. MSHA proposes and enacts a flurry of new mining rules in the wake of previous years’ mining disasters, such as Crandall Canyon, including: a policy letter on underground communication and tracking devices; a new final rule that increases the pounds per square inch that pressure seals must withstand in an explosion; a proposal to test miners for drugs and alcohol; and a final rule requiring additional safety equipment for rescue teams at underground mines.

7. California gets serious with heat stress on the job. The company that hired a pregnant teen who died of heat stroke this spring after working in a vineyard without enough shade or water was hit with the highest fine ever issued to a farming operation in the state. Merced Farm Labor’s license was also revoked until Aug. 24, 2011 after the death of Maria Jimenez.

6. The employer payment for most types of PPE rule takes effect. OSHA started enforcing the new rule May 15, 2008. The only exceptions: non-specialty safety-toe protective footwear; shoes or boots with built-in metatarsal protection requested by an employee; logging boots; and everyday work or ordinary clothing used solely for protection from weather.

5. An explosion at an Imperial Sugar Refinery near Savannah, GA, kills 14 people and injures dozens more. The blast destroyed a packaging plant. The cause, ignition of dust, placed an emphasis on workplace ignitable dust hazards.

4. Amendment to the Americans with Disabilities Act to place burden on employers. The revision may dramatically increase the number of employees who can legally qualify as disabled. Action step for employers and those in charge of safety: Instead of an open-ended light-duty assignment that might define a worker as disabled, re-assess the returning worker’s condition every two weeks.

3. Distracted drivers prove fatal and costly. A Sept. 12 collision between two trains in California killed 25 people. The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating, but preliminary information shows the locomotive engineer of one train was using his cell phone to text within 30 seconds of the accident. In the wake of the crash, the Federal Railroad Administration enacted a new rule banning railroad employees from using cell phones (except in emergencies) and other electronic devices on the job. In another case, International Paper Co. agreed to pay $5.2 million to settle a personal injury lawsuit after one of its employees used her cell phone while driving for work. The employee hit another car, and its driver had to have an arm amputated as a result.

2. Now OSHA can multiply PPE and training fines by the number of employees. Under a new rule, OSHA can issue per-employee citations for those types of violations starting Jan. 12, 2009.

1. President-elect Barack Obama promises an “invigorated” OSHA. Obama supported the Protecting America’s Workers Act as a Senator. The bill would increase OSHA penalties. Obama has also called on OSHA to issue standards “in a timely and more effective manner.” While the financial crisis may delay some reforms the new administration may want, some changes can be made by just shifting existing funding.

Vote for your top safety story or nominate one of your own in the Comments Box below.

A Texas drilling company will pay $16 million to the family of a woman who was killed when equipment fell off its tractor trailer and onto the victim’s SUV.

Pioneer Drilling Co. of San Antonio, TX, agreed to the settlement after three days of trial in a Texas court.

On Sept. 11, 2008, Rhonda Henson was driving her Ford Explorer with her husband in the passenger seat. A large piece of oil field equipment fell off a passing tractor trailer, crushing the driver’s side of the SUV.

According to the Times-Review, jurors heard a 911 call in which an eyewitness tells an emergency center operator that she yelled to see if anyone was in the SUV. Thomas Henson, who was out of the truck, told the eyewitness his wife was dead in the vehicle.

The equipment, weighing more than 15 tons, was secured with two chains, not four as required by law.

A local police department report also said the driver, 21-year-old Daniel Armstrong, failed to control his speed.

The attorney for Henson’s family said sworn testimony showed at least one Pioneer employee was aware that Armstrong had several traffic tickets, a suspended license and wasn’t qualified to drive the tractor trailer.

The attorney said other company employees forged, backdated and fabricated Armstrong’s records after the accident. A company employee eventually came forward with that claim.

A statement from Pioneer said all but $1 million of the $16 million settlement will be covered by insurance.

A new federal court ruling further complicates whether you have to pay employees for the time they spend putting on and taking off safety gear. This recent ruling is a split decision for employers.

A district court has ruled that a company doesn’t have to pay workers for donning and doffing personal protective equipment (PPE). However, the employer may have to pay for the time spent walking from where the gear is stored to their work areas.

Three employees sued U.S. Steel Corp. seeking pay for the time spent donning and doffing PPE, showering, and walking to and from their workstations after donning and before doffing. The company asked the district court to throw out the case.

In Steiner v. Mitchell, the Supreme Court ruled “activities, such as the donning and doffing of specialized protective gear that are performed either before or after the regular workshift, on or off the production line, are compensable if those activities are an integral and indispensable part of the principal activities for which covered workmen are employed.”

However, federal law says there are exceptions if two conditions are met:

1. There must be a bona fide collective bargaining agreement that excludes such payment, and
2. The activities at issue must constitute “changing clothes” within the meaning of the statute.

The employees in question did have a collective bargaining agreement that excluded time spent donning and doffing PPE.

So the matter came down to this: Were the employees just changing clothes or putting on specialized PPE?

The court found, after looking at photos and video of the PPE at issue, that flame retardant jackets and pants, glasses, boots, and hard hats unquestionably fell within the common definition of clothes.

For that reason, the court partially granted U.S. Steel’s request and threw out the part of the lawsuit regarding donning, doffing and showering.

But the district court didn’t throw out the question of whether to pay for the time walking from changing areas to workstations. It cited the Supreme Court’s decision in Alvarez that “during a continuous workday, any walking time that occurs after the beginning of the employee’s first principal activity and before the end of the employee’s last principal activity” is compensable.

The question over walking time will now go to trial.

Let us know what you think of the court’s decision and the issue of whether to pay employees for donning and doffing PPE in the Comments Box below.

Cite: Andrako v. U.S. Steel, U.S. District Court, W.D. PA, No. 07-1629, 6/22/09.

For the last eight years, OSHA has de-emphasized recordkeeping inspections. That’s about to change.

OSHA is preparing a National Emphasis Program (NEP) on recordkeeping. Its targets:

• Companies in high-injury industries with low injury rates. OSHA will check to see that records match reality.
• Incentive programs that encourage employees not to report injuries. Example: The unit with the lowest injury rate for the quarter will win prizes or get a special financial reward.
• Disincentives to report injuries. Example: Workers who report injuries are disciplined or fired.

Speaking at the American Society of Safety Engineers’ (ASSE) Safety 2009 conference in San Antonio, acting OSHA administrator Jordan Barab said the agency isn’t opposed to incentive programs, as long as the incentives are for proactive measures.

Barab said he’s somewhat skeptical of behavioral programs that always blame workers for incidents and injuries.

In an interview with SafetyNewsAlert.com after his speech, Barab pointed to the 2005 BP Texas City, TX, disaster in which 15 employees were killed and 170 were injured in an explosion. Barab said the first thing BP did was to fire a bunch of workers “when that was only the tip of the iceberg,” according to an investigation by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.

On another topic, Barab said OSHA isn’t eliminating the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP). However, he added that the days of OSHA forming alliances with various industry groups instead of enacting new or revising existing standards are over.

When will OSHA have a permanent administrator? Barab said at this point, it looks like it will be fall at the earliest. However, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has told Barab not to wait. When Barab took the position as interim head of OSHA, Solis told him to go full speed ahead on her workplace safety agenda, which includes vigorous enforcement and enactment of new standards. Barab will assume the No. 2 position at OSHA once a permanent administrator is confirmed.

Barab said OSHA will react quickly to injury trends, such as moving inspectors to Texas, starting in July, to counter the high number of construction fatalities in the state (see our earlier story here). “A SWAT team of OSHA inspectors will fan out over Texas,” Barab said, to visit sites in locales where construction fatalities and injuries have been a particular problem.

Check back with SafetyNewsAlert.com often this week for updates from the ASSE Safety 2009 conference.

Ever wish you could have someone translate an OSHA standard into plain English? You’re not alone.

When it comes to interpreting exactly what OSHA requires of employers, your peers often go directly to the source to find out.

In fact, OSHA keeps track of the top safety and health topic questions it receives.

The agency keeps two lists depending on how it receives the questions: by e-mail or phone.

Eight topics appear on both lists.

The following were the top 10 topics raised via e-mail questions handled by OSHA’s Directorate of Enforcement Programs in March 2009, followed by the pertinent standard and the topic’s corresponding position on the phone list:

1. Powered industrial trucks (1910.178, #3)
2. Sanitation (1910.141, #4)
3. Hazard communication (1910.1200, #2)
4. Bloodborne pathogens (1910.1030, #1)
5. Personal protective equipment, general requirements (1910.132, #5)
6. Medical services and first aid (1910.151, #6)
7. Ergonomics (no OSHA standard, not on phone list)
8. Electrical, general requirements (1910.303, not on phone list)
9. Respiratory protection (1910.134, #8)
10. Air contaminants (1910.1000, #7).

The two questions in the top-10 list of questions received by phone that aren’t on the e-mail list are about indoor air quality (no OSHA standard) and permit-required confined spaces (1910.146).

We’d like to hear from you on this topic. Which OSHA standard drives you crazy? Which one is the most difficult to understand? Have you ever sought advice from any sources on a standard? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

In the last two weeks, three undocumented workers have reached settlements totaling $3.85 million for workplace accidents in New York.

A lawyer representing the three men said the message to businesses is clear: If a company employs an illegal immigrant and that person gets hurt on the job, the employer is still responsible financially.

All three were in construction but working on different projects.

An illegal immigrant from Mexico was scalded over large portions of his body by an exploding pipe at a Wall Street construction site and settled his case for $2.5 million.

A second undocumented Mexican worker suffered severe injuries to his left foot and other parts of his body when a beam fell on his lower body at a building site in Manhattan. The worker settled his case for $750,000.

The third worker, from Ecuador, was injured at a construction site in Queens when three 44×10-foot trusses, each weighing 200 pounds, fell on him. He suffered a fractured hip and other injuries. His settlement is for $600,000.

This worker said at a news conference, “The contractor tried to blame me.” When asked what message he would give to other workers, he said, “Don’t be afraid to talk to a lawyer.”

Joel Magallan of Asociacion Tepeyac, an immigrant advocacy group, said, “They [undocumented immigrants] have to know today that they have rights — the same rights as other workers who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents.”

Let us know what you think of this story in the Comments Box below.

An employee helps a co-worker get a stuck bag of chips out of a workplace vending machine and in the process fractures his hip. Does he get workers’ comp or not?

The employee got comp. Here’s what happened:

Clinton Dwyer was working at a Circuit City when a co-worker asked him to help her get a stuck bag of chips out of a vending machine.

There was a history of snacks not dropping down from the machine’s spindles. Employees would shake the machine to dislodge the stuck snack.

Dwyer shook the machine twice, but no luck.

Then, he took a step back and gave a hockey-player-like check to the machine with his shoulder.

Next thing, Dwyer was on the ground in pain. He fractured his hip in the process of trying to retrieve the snack.

Doctors operated on him that day for the fractured hip. Years after the incident he still feels pain in humid weather and after a certain amount of exertion.

He filed for workers’ comp, and Circuit City fought it.

Did personal comfort doctrine apply?

The state Workers’ Comp Commission awarded him comp, saying the personal comfort doctrine applied.

That doctrine says at-work employee actions for personal comfort — such as eating or using the restroom — are covered by workers’ comp.

Circuit City took the case to the state appellate court.

The court said Dwyer should get comp, but not because of the personal comfort doctrine.

Instead, the court said the good Samaritan doctrine applied.

That doctrine says when an employee leaves his work duties to help someone else, whether that is “in the course of work” hinges on whether the employee’s action was reasonably foreseeable.

The court said, since there were previous problems with the snack machine, and the company had no stated policy against shaking it, it was foreseeable that Dwyer would help his co-worker. For that reason, he got comp.

This isn’t an isolated case. An Oregon court has also ruled that an employee who injured his foot while helping a co-worker dislodge candy from a machine should also receive comp.

Did the court extend the good Samaritan doctrine too far? Do you think Dwyer should get comp? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Cite 1: Circuit City v. Dwyer, Appellate Court of Illinois, 5/21/09.

Cite 2: Washington Group International v. Barela, Oregon Court of Appeals, 8/22/07.

While it didn’t cite Wal-Mart for a violation of a specific standard, OSHA has used its General Duty Clause to fine the retailer in the trampling death of a worker last November.

Wal-Mart has 15 business days to decide whether to pay the $7,000 fine or appeal it.

OSHA issued Wal-Mart one serious citation under its General Duty Clause for inadequate crowd management following the Nov. 28, 2008, death of its employee, Jdimytai Damour, at its Valley Stream, NY, store.

Damour died of asphyxiation after he was knocked to the ground and trampled by a crowd of about 2,000 shoppers who surged into the store for its annual day-after-Thanksgiving sale.

OSHA says employees were exposed to being crushed by the crowd due to the store’s failure to implement reasonable and effective crowd management techniques.

OSHA’s acting director for the Long Island, NY, area, Anthony Ciuffo, said this was not an unforeseen situation. Ciuffo says Wal-Mart should have recognized the hazards based on previous Friday-after-Thanksgiving crowds.

Wise use of General Duty Clause?

The agency cites the General Duty Clause when there’s no specific regulation that covers an incident resulting in serious injury or death.

OSHA’s General Duty Clause states, “Each employer shall furnish to each of his employees employment and place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.”

How does OSHA define “recognized hazards”? In its recently revised Field Operations Manual (FOM) for inspectors, OSHA lists three ways in which a hazard qualifies as recognized:

• Employer recognition: This can be established by evidence of actual employer knowledge of a hazardous condition.
• Industry recognition: A hazard is recognized if the employer’s industry is aware of its existence.
• Common sense recognition: The FOM states, “Hazard recognition can still be established if a hazardous condition is so obvious that any reasonable person would have recognized it.”

So, here’s the question: Do you think trampling by a crowd was a recognized hazard in this Wal-Mart case? Also, what do you think about OSHA’s increased use of the General Duty Clause overall? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Imagine this: Two of your employees who work together both get little sleep before performing a safety-sensitive task. Then, the two are involved in an incident that kills 50 people.

A major focus of the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) investigation into the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 on Feb. 12 has been on whether the captain and co-pilot were fatigued.

Co-pilot Rebecca Shaw lived with her parents near Seattle and commuted across the country to her job. The night before the accident, Shaw flew overnight from Seattle and changed planes in Memphis before reporting for the early morning flight out of Newark, NJ.

It’s unclear whether Captain Marvin Renslow slept the night before the trip. He was in the middle of a two-day assignment. The night before, he logged into a computer in a crew room, according to NTSB documents.

The crash killed all 49 people on the plane and one person on the ground.

The problem of fatigued employees isn’t limited to pilots. Fatigue costs U.S. employers $136 billion annually in health-related costs and lost worker productivity — not to mention potential lawsuits in cases involving serious injury or death.

What can be done?

You can’t follow your employees home to tuck them into bed at night. Most of the responsibility for being alert at work falls on employees themselves.

However, there are some tips you can give workers and some things you can do to improve alertness. Among the things workers can do:

• Set regular hours for sleeping. The average adult needs eight hours a night, but some require up to 10.
• Avoid caffeine three to five hours before going to bed.
• Naps can help if they’re less than an hour or longer than 90 minutes. That way, workers are less likely to wake up during deep sleep.
• Develop overall good health habits such as daily physical activity and a balanced diet.

For companies with night or long shifts, bright light and cooler temperatures enhance alertness. If possible, schedule the most tedious tasks early in a shift. Moderate physical activity during breaks, such as taking a walk, helps, too.

Employees should have at least ten hours between work shifts.

Have you taken steps to encourage workers in safety-sensitive positions to get proper rest? Let us know about what you’ve done, or leave us a comment on this story, in the box below.

A company had banned its employees from talking or texting on cell phones while working for safety reasons. Now it’s taking the cell phone ban one step further.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) is banning employees from carrying their cell phones on the job. The penalty if they do: termination.

The new rule came after a trolley rammed into another one, injuring the operator and nearly 50 passengers, derailing both trains, and causing MBTA service to be suspended at the Government Center in Boston for several hours. The crash totaled three trolley cars and caused $9.6 million in damage.

The operator of the trolley told investigators from his hospital bed that he was sending a text message to his girlfriend just before the crash. Preliminary information from an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board also shows the driver, Aiden Quinn, ran a red light just before the crash.

Before this incident, MBTA employees were allowed to carry cell phones but were banned from talking or texting while on the road or tracks. A first offense carried a three-day suspension, although the agency had the right to fire violators. MBTA’s General Manager Daniel Grabauskas said the trolley driver in this crash would be fired.

“You are not to get on board that bus or [train or trolley] and have a cell phone on your person or in the cab. Period,” Grabauskas told The Boston Globe. “This is going to be a zero-tolerance policy.”

Officials said the new policy wouldn’t compromise communications in an emergency because cabs are equipped with radios and emergency call buttons.

Transit officials say in the last 12 months, five train and trolley drivers and 13 bus drivers had been cited under the old policy. One bus driver was fired.

State Transportation Secretary James Aloisi Jr. predicts other states and transit agencies would follow MBTA’s lead and ban employees from having cell phones on the job.

Did MBTA make the right decision, or is this overkill? Does your company ban employees from using cell phones while driving for business purposes? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

California authorities have made massive allegations of workers’ comp fraud against an employer.

The Orange County District Attorney has charged the owners of three California roofing businesses with $38 million in workers’ comp fraud.

Michael Petronella and Devon Kile are accused of skirting comp payments by under-reporting the number of employees working for their companies and by discouraging their workers from filing claims. They both face between five and 102 years in prison.

Officials started an investigation when an employee of one of the companies fell off a roof and collected $6,000 in workers’ comp coverage.

The employee said he was working for Petronella Roofing, which had workers’ comp coverage. In fact, he was on a different company’s payroll, Western Cleanoff. Western had no comp insurance because it claimed it didn’t have any employees.

The indictment cites 41 other instances of employees who filed comp claims while on the payroll of uninsured companies owned by Petronella and Kile.

The district attorney accuses the two owners of playing a shell game of shuffling payrolls to make fraudulent claims for uncovered workers who were injured.

Why should other companies care?

Does comp fraud by some companies impact others who do the right thing and purchase proper insurance coverage?

One obvious reason it does: Companies without proper comp insurance have lower costs and can charge less than competitors.

Here’s another reason: Fraud is a key factor behind high comp insurance rates for other companies. When employers under-report the number of insured workers to reduce their comp premiums, it looks like there are fewer workers in a particular industry.

Comp premiums are based on injury rates in an industry. If the number of total workers is too low, but the number of injured workers stays the same, it appears that an industry has a higher accident rate than it actually does.

In California, where this case took place, the state Workers’ Compensation Insurance Bureau recently recommended a 24% average increase in comp premiums.

In a recent poll on Safety News Alert, only 19% of respondents said the current workers’ comp laws were just about right.

What do you think about the state of workers’ comp? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

The Orange County Register has more about this fraud case here and here.

Slips, trips and falls are routinely one of the top causes of injuries in workplaces. They also subtract from a company’s bottom line due to medical and workers’ comp insurance, lost productivity and retraining costs.

Here are 12 common mistakes made by companies when it comes to slip, trip and fall prevention:

• Mistake #12: Starting from scratch. There’s no need to. One place to start: consensus standards, such as ASTM’s Practice for Safe Walking Surfaces and ANSI’s Standard for the Provision of Slip Resistance on Walking/Working Surfaces.
• Mistake #11: Missing the opportunity to control walking style. Employees need to be reminded not to run and to keep their eyes on their walking path, especially while carrying items.
• Mistake #10: Relying on ineffective measurements. Best practice: Test flooring as it will be installed and used, under expected conditions (including wetness).
• Mistake #9: Short flight stairs and other elevation changes. Stairs with three or fewer steps need to be marked with contrasting color to other walking surfaces and be well lit. Seriously consider eliminating any change in level that’s 1/4 inch or greater.
• Mistake #8: Footwear. Shoes meant for both indoor and outdoor working conditions may not provide the best protection against slip, trips and falls in either circumstance because of their design compromises. Shoe features that need to be considered are: tread pattern, tread composition, sole height, support, lacing and adjustment method.
• Mistake #7: Ignoring pre-loss indicators. Slippery floors often lead to a lot of near-misses without injury before an incident with injury occurs. Attention needs to be paid to near-misses.
• Mistake #6: Less than adequate housekeeping. Any slip, trip and fall prevention program needs to include a serious statement of commitment to keeping walking/working surfaces clean.
• Mistake #5: Relying on single-factor solutions. While it may seem prudent to focus on the largest potential cause of slips, trips and falls in a particular facility, secondary factors shouldn’t be ignored after the primary one is addressed. Example: If a floor’s finish is addressed, the facility should still look into floor treatments, footwear, warnings and spill response.
• Mistake #4: Unresponsive contaminant control. Contaminants aren’t just chemicals. In some facilities they may be weather-related or food. Elimination of the contaminant should be considered first, followed by reduction and then dealing with the contaminants once they’re present.
• Mistake #3: Lack of proper cleaning procedures. Problems with cleaning range from poor spill response to improper daily cleaning to insufficient or nonexistent deep cleaning.
• Mistake #2: Selecting flooring inappropriate for the application. If a flooring sample can be installed to test under actual conditions, that’s ideal. If that’s not possible, find other examples of similar installations to yours.
• Mistake #1: Lack of proper follow-up. Selecting the proper flooring and establishing policies to prevent slips, trips and falls are the right places to start. But policies must be reinforced and updated if necessary. Companies should follow up on near-misses as well as injuries.

Adapted from a presentation by Keith Vidal of Vidal Engineering in St. Louis and David Natalizia of Dynamic Safety in Costa Mesa, CA, at the 2008 ASSE Safety Conference. For information on ASSE’s 2009 Safety Conference, click here.

No question about this: Workers’ Compensation covers medical treatment for employees injured on the job. However, does a home security system qualify as medical treatment?

According to an appeals court in Maryland, the answer is yes.

Carol Simmons, a night auditor, was brutally attacked with a baseball bat during a robbery at a Comfort Suites Hotel.

Left for dead, 67-year-old Simmons was found hours later, lying unconscious in a pool of blood.

She was treated for severe traumatic brain injury and multiple skull fractures during 2.5 months in the hospital.

Maryland’s Workers’ Compensation Commission awarded Simmons temporary total disability benefits.

A neuropsychologist treating Simmons said she continued to fear someone would harm her in her home and that her anxiety was contributing to insomnia.

The doctor strongly recommended a home security system be installed.

The WC Commission granted the request for the security system.

Comfort Suites appealed.

What constitutes medical treatment?

The motel chain argued that a security system didn’t constitute medical treatment.

In an initial appeal, a court sided with Comfort Suites’ argument.

But Simmons appealed that ruling. This time, the court of appeals said a jury could reasonably find that a home security system, in Simmons’ case, did qualify as medical treatment.

The court wrote: “Where there is a recommendation from a medical professional that a device or service be provided because it will provide therapeutic medical relief from the effects of the injury, the determination whether it is compensable medical treatment is a question of fact.”

Now, the case will either go to a jury trial or be settled out of court. It may be difficult for Comfort Suites to argue its case before a jury, because its lawyer stated, “I completely understand and frankly agree with” the need for a home security system for her peace of mind.

What do you think of this case? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Also, take our poll on current workers’ comp laws here.

Cite: Simmons v. Comfort Suites, Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, 3/31/09. You can download the case here (free Adobe Acrobat Reader required).

Blanket policies barring employees on light or limited duty from working overtime violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

That’s the upshot of a case involving United Airlines. In a consent decree filed in federal court, the company has agreed to pay $850,000 to settle an EEOC disability-discrimination lawsuit.

From 1998 to 2003, the airline had a policy that denied overtime work to employees who were on light or limited duty.

Samuel Chetcuti, a United employee at the San Francisco airport, filed a claim against the company.

Chetcuti has epilepsy and was under medical restrictions that prevented him from operating heavy machinery or working “at heights.”

United considered Chetcuti on light duty. He was medically cleared to work overtime, but United’s policy prevented him from doing so.

A consent decree between United and the EEOC states that the airline “shall not discriminate against United employees at San Francisco International Airport on the basis of disability regarding eligibility for overtime.” United ended the overtime restriction in 2003.

EEOC attorney William Tamayo said United’s former overtime policy ran “counter to the ADA’s goal that each employee be evaluated individually on whether they can get the job done, with or without an accommodation.”

One of the best ways to reduce workers’ comp costs is to have a light-duty program already in place for injured or disabled workers.

Does your company have a light-duty program in place for employees who are injured or who are diagnosed with a medical condition? Let us know about it in the Comments Box below.

Not only is this a bizarre OSHA fine, it could set a dangerous precedent. The agency has fined a company for an employee’s fatal injury that happened while he was away from his home office on assignment.

Buffalo News sportswriter Tom Borrelli fell while climbing a steep set of stairs on Nov. 8, 2008, at Buffalo’s All High Stadium where he was covering a football game.

Borrelli was trying to enter the stadium’s press box. To get there, reporters have to climb 13 steep metal stairs, prop open a hatch and walk across an unprotected walkway on the stadium roof.

Borrelli apparently hit his head at the top of the stairs and fell down them.

The reporter was paralyzed from the neck down after the fall and died of his injuries 12 days later.

Now OSHA has issued a fine — not against Buffalo public schools, but against the newspaper for sending Borrelli to cover the game. Total fine: $31,500.

OSHA found that:

• fixed stairways were less than 22 inches wide
• fixed stairs were installed at an angle to the horizontal greater than 50 degrees
• stair railings and handrails were not installed according to regulation; instead there was a single pipe-rail 26 inches above the stair tread
• fixed stairs did not have at least 7 feet of vertical clearance between the stair treads and the overhead obstructions, and
• a side-hinged door was not used at the top of the stairs; instead, there was a hatchway.

Obviously, the newspaper had no control over any of that. So what’s the reasoning behind fining the newspaper?

“Reporters were exposed to the hazards of falls and head injuries whenever they used the press box,” said Arthur Dube, regional director of OSHA’s Buffalo office.

“The newspaper was aware of these conditions. [It] should have prevented the reporters from using the stairs and the press box until they were corrected,” Dube said.

Buffalo News editor Margaret Sullivan called OSHA’s fine “illogical.”

She notes that reporters are sent into all sorts of situations, including covering wars, that newspapers can’t control.

A lawyer for Borrelli’s family says a lawsuit against the school district is pending. The family says it has no intention of suing the newspaper because Borrelli was just performing the job he loved on the day of his fatal injury.

The school district has been cited with serious violations by the state and is under order to repair the stairs by July.

Reporters aren’t the only workers who are sent to conduct their jobs off-site. All sorts of contractors and repair people do this every day, as do salespeople.

Imagine being fined by OSHA because your employee suffered a work injury that didn’t happen on your property.

What do you think of this case? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Which types of on-the-job injuries cause employees to miss the most time from work?

Liberty Mutual Insurance has released its annual Workplace Safety Index that identifies the leading causes of the most disabling workplace injuries.

Overall, the estimated direct U.S. workers’ compensation costs for these top ten injuries totaled $48.6 billion in 2006.

These 10 categories account for 87.9% of the cost burden of disabling workplace injuries.

Here’s the breakdown on the top 10:

1. Overexertion (injuries caused by excessive lifting, pushing, pulling, holding or throwing): $12.4B, 25.7%
2. Fall on the same level (such as slips and trips): $6.4B, 13.3%
3. Fall to lower level: $5.3B, 10.8%
4. Bodily reaction (injuries caused from slipping or tripping without falling): $4.8B, 10.0%
5. Struck by object (such as a tool falling on a worker from above): $4.3B, 8.9%
6. Struck against object (such as a worker walking into a door): $2.5B, 5.1%
7. Highway incident: $2.4B, 4.9%
8. Caught in/compressed by: $2.1B, 4.4%
9. Repetitive motion (injuries due to repeated stress or strain): $2.0B, 4.0%, and
10. Assaults/violent acts: $0.4B, 0.9%.

Between 1998 and 2006, the costs of repetitive motion injuries declined the most: 35.3%. The costs of fall on the same level and fall to lower level each showed the largest increase: 17.9%.

Have you had success recently in reducing any of these types of injuries? If so, let us know about it in the Comments Box below.

What constitutes loss of use of feet and hands to qualify for permanent disability? A state court says it’s not necessary for employees to actually injure their feet or hands for that to be the case.

The case involves the award of lifetime income benefits (LIBS) to an employee by the Texas Workers’ Compensation Commission.

Carmen Muro was injured at work when she slipped and fell on a bathroom floor. She says she fell backwards and raised her right arm to prevent her head from hitting a toilet.

She injured her neck, right shoulder, lower back and hips, and underwent six surgeries on her back, hips and right shoulder.

The Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania denied her LIBS. If she didn’t receive LIBS, disability payments would run out after about eight years. The comp commission ruled in Muro’s favor.

The insurer appealed the case to a state trial court where a jury also decided for Muro. The case then went to the state appeals court.

The insurer argued Muro wasn’t entitled to LIBS because she didn’t suffer a direct injury to her feet and right hand.

The Texas labor code says LIBS are paid for permanent loss of both feet, or permanent loss of one foot and one hand, due to injury in the workplace.

The insurer said Muro’s injuries only affected her feet and right hand indirectly.

The appeals court rejected this argument, saying it was enough that Muro’s limitations on her use of her feet and right hand were due to her injuries and surgeries to her hips and shoulders. As one doctor stated, the hands rely on the shoulders to function and an injury to the hips affect the feet.

You can read the court’s full opinion here.

Have an opinion on this case? You can share it in the Comments Box below.

Who has more work during the down economy? A lawyer who represents people injured on the job expects he may be getting more work.

Scott Gennarelli, an attorney with Salenger, Sack, Schwartz & Kimmel in Woodbury, NY, says the economy could lead to companies cutting corners with safety. And of course, that could lead to more workplace injuries — and related lawsuits that his firm handles.

In a Long Island Business Review story headlined, “Down economy ups risk of construction injuries,” Gennarelli says economic pressure on builders could lead them to try to save money by having fewer workers do the same amount of work, rushing construction or saving money on materials.

According to Gennarelli, “There are incentive clauses. If contractors finish earlier, they get a bonus. If they’re late, there are penalties. That leads to pushing workers to get work done.”

Another point of view

A contractor quoted in the story, who asked to remain anonymous, provides a different point of view.

He says a down economy isn’t likely to change some companies. “There are always people who cut corners. Will people cheat when times get tough? Some people will never cheat.”

And speaking of cheating, another unidentified contractor quoted in the story says he’s seen a surge in workers’ comp claims among people about to be laid off.

“This is a pattern I’m observing,” the contractor said. “It was brought to me by my comptroller who said we’re having workmen’s comp claims for very minor injuries that seem to occur in the couple of weeks before we downsized.”

Example: An employee who fears a layoff may file a report complaining of a pulled muscle. It’s an injury that’s difficult to disprove.

After being laid off, the employee uses the previously filed report to apply for comp.

Have you experienced a recent rise in workers’ comp claims? Is this a pattern you’ve experienced in previous recessions? What sorts of bogus workers’ comp cases have you encountered?

Let us know in the Comments Box below.