New Orleans     Given all of the effort of the techies to promote the so-called “gig” economy and create a permanent class of part-time, on-call workers with few to no benefits, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that some of the big boys have already found loopholes allowing them escape clauses for compensating their workers, even in the terrible and tragic situations where workers are hurt in the course of serving exactly those same employers. Not too long ago reporters for ProPublica ran a piece in Salon.com on the way Costco, McDonalds, Walmart, numerous health care companies, and others had figured out loopholes in Texas and passed laws in Oklahoma to write and administer their own self-serving workman’s compensation programs. There was nothing pretty to be found in reading the piece.

This is all complicated, but the simple backstory is that the Texas constitution had pretty much always allowed employers to opt out of workman’s comp, but until some Dallas-based lawyers started pulling and pitching the path out, most had stayed in thinking it protected them as well as their workers. One of the lawyers got so good at this chicanery that he left and formed a company, PartnerSource, to do nothing but scheme and cheat on workers’ injuries. Needless to say there was a ready market, and the shyster has a map pins all over his wall on where he wants to move the opt-out campaign.

What kind of things do they get away with and who does the damage, you might ask? Well, let’s looks at some of the cases with ProPublica:

 

· For nearly 40 years, every state has covered occupational diseases and repetitive stress injuries, recognizing medical research that some conditions develop over time. But in Texas, a number of companies, including McDonald’s and the United Regional Health Care System, don’t cover cumulative trauma such as carpal tunnel. U.S. Foods, the country’s second largest food distributor, also doesn’t cover any sickness or disease “regardless of how contracted,” potentially allowing it to dodge work-related conditions such as heat stroke, chemical exposures or even cancer.
· several companies, including Home Depot, Pilot Travel Centers and McDonald’s, exclude injuries caused by safety violations or the failure to obtain assistance with a particular task.
· Brookdale Senior Living, the nation’s largest chain of assisted living facilities, doesn’t cover most bacterial infections. Why Taco Bell can accompany injured workers to doctors’ appointments and Sears can deny benefits if workers don’t report injuries by the end of their shifts. Costco will pay only $15,000 to workers who lose a finger while its rival Walmart pays $25,000.

 

You get the picture?

Add to these horrors the fact that disputes are often forced into arbitration and denied access to courts, the companies are pushing the costs over to Medicaid and Social Security disability and away from their own responsibilities, and all of this is virtually unregulated, and the full dimensions of another assault in state legislatures is clearly on the way. Bills are already pending in South Carolina and Tennessee, and a coalition led by executives at Loews, Walmart, Nordstrom’s and other companies has been formed to promote passage in other areas.

Open the window even a crack and the horrors come roaring in!