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Employers Pressure Doctors, Workers to Stay Mum on Workplace Injuries |
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More than two-thirds of injured or sick workers in a recent survey feared employer discipline or even losing their jobs if their injuries were reported, a new study from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed today.
The GAO surveyed more than 1,000 occupational health practitioners and found:
- More than two-thirds observed worker fear for reporting an injury or illness.
- A third said they were pressured by employers to provide insufficient treatments to workers to hide or downplay work-related injuries or illnesses.
- More than half of practitioners said they were pressured by an employer to downplay an injury or illness so it wouldn’t be reported to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s official log that tracks workplace injuries and illnesses.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the GAO report confirms what rank-and-file workers, local union safety activists and workplace safety professionals have long said:
Employer policies and practices that discourage the reporting of workplace injuries and illnesses are widespread and are undermining the safety and health of America’s workers….These destructive and discriminatory practices must be stopped.
Injury and illness records help OSHA allocate its resources, accurately target its inspections and evaluate the success of efforts to improve workplace health and safety. Employers underreport injury and illness rates because lower rates likely lead to fewer inspections, improve their competitiveness when bidding for new contracts and lower their workers’ compensation costs.
The report also confirms a recent survey of local unions by the AFL-CIO and national unions that found many employer “safety” programs actually discourage reporting and recording of workplace injuries.
More than half of local union leaders surveyed reported there were safety incentive programs, injury discipline programs, absenteeism policies with demerits for injuries and/or post-injury drug testing policies in their workplaces and that these policies discouraged the reporting of workplace injuries by workers.
Says Trumka:
Employer policies that discourage the reporting of injuries not only undermine the completeness and accuracy of workplace injury data and the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys. More importantly, they prevent injured workers from receiving needed medical care and prevent hazardous conditions that injure workers from being identified and corrected.
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis says OSHA will hit hard employers who underreport injuries and illnesses:
Many of the problems identified in the report are quite alarming, and OSHA will be taking strong enforcement action where we find underreporting.
The GAO report was requested by Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) The four are the chief sponsors of the Protecting America’s Workers Act, which would give OSHA additional tools to combat underreporting of injuries and illnesses by employers.
Says Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee:
We cannot allow the lack of accurate information to permit hazardous working conditions to go unaddressed, putting workers’ health and lives at risk. The GAO report underscores the need for OSHA to have all the tools they need to eliminate incentives that result in underreporting injuries.
Harkin, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. says the underreporting of injuries and illnesses is “undermining the health and safety of America’s workers.”
If we don’t know the full extent of the workplace hazards workers face, we cannot fully address these risks. We need to take steps to require employers to provide a full account of on-the-job injuries and to protect workers, so they can report workplace incidents without fear of retaliation.
To read the GAO report, click here.
Be sure to check out “16 Deaths Per Day,” a video by Brave New Films that highlights the weak deterrence and penalties of the nation’s workplace safety laws.
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Hello All,
I just received this e-mail and would like to encourage everyone to take a moment to follow up and get a copy of the report. This is an important action in the fight for dignity and respect within the area of Safety for Injured Workers and the “Hostile Workplace Environment” they face when they follow their lawful obligation to report workplace injuries.
I look forward seeing this report, and I already know from my 11 year experience that the trail of this system failure is embedded within the facts. Not until the trail of workplace injury “Claim Failure” is given a full and complete review, by competent and qualified investigators, will the truth and facts ever be exposed about all the tactics, conduct and deception used to extort benefits from the injured and conceal the full extent of the true cost and liability of workplace injury in the American Workplace today.
Please take this opportunity to participate and communicate your concerns to others about this conduct and help to bring these institutionalized “Dark Practices” by Employers and Insurers, used against our Working Families, to the surface. Until we help to expose and bring all of these acts and practices to the public floor, these acts and conduct, all which have created this “Hostile Workplace Environment,” will continue to operate undeterred. If your fortunate enough to be healthy and have never faced this incredible and abusive evil within the workplace, keep this one thought in mind, YOU could be next! It can happen in the blink of an eye.
Only YOU can save the plight of the next Injured Worker and help them avoid the failed pathway we all have seen provided.
Thank you in advance for your interest and support.
Your Comments and Feedback are Welcome!!
Craig Michie
Nevada Voters Injured At Work
NvVIAW@aol.com
Subject: AFL-CIO President Trumka on GAO Report on the Accuracy of Workplace Injury and Illness Data
For Immediate Release Contact: Amaya Tune: 202-637-5018
Statement by AFL-CIO President Trumka on GAO Report
on the Accuracy of Workplace Injury and Illness Data
November 16, 2009
The GAO report released today confirms that employer policies and practices that discourage the reporting of workplace injuries and illnesses are widespread and undermining the safety and health of America’s workers.
The results of a GAO survey of more than 1,000 occupational health practitioners are alarming – more than two thirds reported that workers were afraid of discipline or termination for reporting injuries; 53% reported that they were pressured by company officials to downplay injuries; and more than one-third were asked by company officials to withhold necessary medical treatment to injured workers so the injury wouldn’t be recorded on the OSHA log.
These results are consistent with the results of a recent local union survey conducted by the AFL-CIO and national unions. More than half of local union leaders surveyed reported that there were safety incentive programs, injury discipline programs, absenteeism policies with demerits for injuries and/or post-injury drug testing policies in their workplaces and that these policies discouraged the reporting of workplace injuries by workers.
Employer policies that discourage the reporting of injuries not only undermine the completeness and accuracy of workplace injury data and the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys, more importantly they prevent injured workers from receiving needed medical care and prevent hazardous conditions that injure workers from being identified and corrected.
These destructive and discriminatory practices must be stopped. We applaud the National Emphasis Program on injury reporting and recording launched by the Obama Administration, the first time in two decades that OSHA has focused on employer injury record keeping practices. OSHA must use this initiative not only to evaluate the accuracy of employers’ injury and illness logs but to take strong enforcement action against employers who are thwarting the reporting and recording of injuries and illnesses.
(For a copy of the preliminary results of the AFL-CIO/union survey on Extent and Impact of Employer Programs and Practices on Workers Reporting Their Injuries contact the AFL-CIO Safety and Health Office at 202-637-5366.)
###
President Trumka,
RE: GAO Report on the Accuracy of Workplace Injury and Illness Data
The issues faced by Injured Workers is a Crime against All Working Families in America today. This is one area within workplace safety that has existed under the radar for far too long. I ask that with the release of this new report from the GAO about the conditions faced by our injured Brothers and Sisters, we stop at nothing to keep this issue as a top priority until injured workers receive respect and dignity in the workplace.
The acts and conduct, driven by Employers and Insurers, have created a “Hostile Workplace Environment” for workers to file lawful workplace injury claims. The abusive conduct faced by injured workers acts to deny the injured the lawful obligation of Treatment, Compensation and Benefits that they are entitled to as a result of a workplace injury. The extortion of these benefits from the injured is a sick and perverse form of conduct against an entire protected class of injured and disabled working people.
Too many Employers and Insurers have now become big profiteers at the expense of the Blood and Broken Backs of our injured members. These Corporate Entities have no shame in building huge windfall profits off the injured and disabled workers which had only gone seaking honest work and a fair days pay.
We are the only tool of protection for these workers, and we must take an active role to monitor, report and enforce reasonable, timely and responsible conduct. Only WE can save the plight of the next Injured Worker and help them to avoid the failed pathway we all have seen provided.
Your Leadership is absolutely necessary to change the current crisis which exists within this critical area of workplace safety and injured worker protection.
Let me know how I can help assist you in protecting my hard working Brothers and Sisters here in Nevada and across the country.
Thank you in advance for your Leadership!
Craig Michie
NvVIAW@aol.com
Nevada Voters Injured At Work