Salon magazine published an article today, Corporate America’s unforgivable new swindle: Leveling workers’ compensation to nothing, exposing the latest assault on the American worker: gutting workers' compensation, a system which has protected labor, as well as capital, from the hazards and costs of injuries on the job or illness related to an employee's duties or work environment.
A note of advice: the Salon piece is a long read. Make yourself a cup of coffee and settle in somewhere comfortable or else plan on tackling it in "episodes." It's worth the effort.
If you simply don't have the time or energy, here's an extremely abbreviated summary. Bill Minick, a lawyer in Texas (surprise, surprise!) has figured out a way to shift the costs of work-related injury and illness from employers to workers. His consulting firm provides corporations one-stop shopping for opting out of the state workers' comp program into an alternative privatized system that turns workers' comp into a worthless mockery of the original concept.
With byzantine rules in each employer's handcrafted policy, tailored to ensure that the most likely injuries in its class of employment can be denied or limited, the company saves a lot of money. As to be expected, the affected employee loses a lot of benefits.
For example, McDonalds doesn't cover carpel tunnel syndrome, a condition it might expect to occur with employees churning out burgers repetitively during shifts, day after day. A company which manages convalescent homes doesn't cover bacterial infections, something it would expect to happen with nursing staff in close physical contact with patients and their bodily fluids and waste.
Moreover, there are all kinds of gotchas lurking in the terms and conditions. Injuries must be reported within 24 hours or coverage is denied. It's not unreasonable for an employee to wait more than a day for a condition to improve on its own, thinking something like "I just need a hot bath and take it easy for a couple of days to let his shoulder/back/leg get better."
Medical care is capped at two years, although an injured employee could need a lifetime of care in some cases. The company chooses the doctors and facilities for the employee, including mandatory review of the cases; undoubtedly a coincidence, but the medical review firm utilized is owned and operated by the wife of Bill Minick. No conflict of interest to see there, people, move along.
There's lots more that's egregious and unfair to labor. Read it and weep.
Of course, we can say "well hell, it's Texas, they're batshit crazy about everything." But, it's not just Texas. Bill Minick's firm has already successfully lobbied Oklahoma and his system is now in place there. They intend to expand it throughout the labor-unfriendly South, the locus of right-to-work and other anti-labor laws, and then spread it throughout the entire country.
And of course, the most aggravating and outrageous bit is how Minick cloaks himself in holy righteousness as his armor against charges that he's exploiting the vulnerable. He says he's doing God's work, because of course, that's exactly what Jesus did. We all remember him castigating those lazy shiftless freeloaders in the Sermon on the Mount, trying to get undeserved medical care from the blameless and praiseworthy moneylenders, right?
“All you can do is pray that the Lord gives you a calling where you can really do good for society,” he said.