Wage Benefits For Ergo Ills?

Orlando

The next version of federal ergonomic rules will be more“flexible,” two industry experts predicted last week at aconference on workers compensation issues here.

That forecast came from Daniel R. Miller, a consultant, and EricOxfeld, an industry advocate, during a panel discussion that waspart of the 56th Annual Florida Workers Compensation Edu-cationConference.

But Mr. Miller, director of workers compensation and disabilityconsulting for Actuarial Sciences Associates, Inc. of Somerset,N.J., and Mr. Oxfeld, the president of UWC-Strategic Services onUnemployment & Workers Compensation in Washington, were not intotal agreement on details.

They differed on one key aspect of what might be included in newregulations that are likely to replace the Occupational Safety andHealth Administration standards that were rejected by Congress inMarch with a Joint Resolution of disapproval.

In answer to a question from panel moderator Sam Friedman,National Underwriter property and casualty editioneditor-in-chief, Mr. Miller said he thought any new regulationwould not include wage replacement payments for workers withergonomic injuries.

“What they wont do is have federal benefits,” he said, statingthat that notion was “dead.”

Mr. Oxfeld said he hoped Mr. Miller was right, but he pointedout that when worker safety standards were adopted for leadexposure, without including compensation, unions sued to includesuch a provision.

He advised, with certainty, that OSHA, which is now having fieldhearings on the question, would develop “a standard with a capitalS,” because, he said there is strong political pressure inWashington to do something.

Both Mr. Oxfeld and Mr. Miller gave extended discourses ondefects in the now-dead standards, which they said would have had adevastating effect on state workers compensation systems.

Mr. Oxfeld noted that OSHA would have given wage replacement forergonomic injury at a higher rate than the states–90 or 100 percentof net pay compared, say, with Florida, where the rate istwo-thirds of net pay.

Unlike state systems, OSHA would have set no caps on weeklybenefits and would have paid them with no waiting period.

Mr. Miller said the standard would have “triggered anunparalleled opportunity for fraud and abuse.” He wondered ifemployers had any employees who wouldnt be willing to “stay homefor 90 days at 90 percent pay” as they could have under theproposed standard.

Mr. Oxfeld said the standard, by requiring employers to makepayments that they were not insured for and circumventing theworkers comp system, would have trampled the legal principle thatmakes workers comp the exclusive remedy for employee on-the-jobinjury claims.

Mr. Oxfeld said the staff of OSHA “do not get it, when it comesto workers compensation.”

He said they had this attitude in spite of a provision in asection of federal law that prohibits any OSHA standard that would“supersede” or in any manner “affect” state workerscompensation.

He urged his listeners to get involved in the legislativeprocess and to let Congress know their concerns about the workerscomp system. His business advocacy group, he said, needs voiceswith an understanding of the system because, “no one at OSHA hasthe slightest idea.”

The conference in Orlando, which includes the Annual FloridaSafety & Health Conference of the Florida Safety & HealthInstitute, was put on by the Florida Workers Compensation Institutein partnership with The National Underwriter Company (the parentcompany of this newsmagazine).

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property &Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, September 3, 2001.Copyright 2001 by The National Underwriter Company in the serialpublication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as anindependent work may be held by the author.

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