In the decade and a half or more than I have known Rick Kupchella of KARE-TV in Minneapolis, he has always been attracted to stories that are complex and tough to tell. I have seen him try to explain community sprawl, how long-distance phone companies price their plans and how Ticketmaster works. I have seen him explore stories like global warming and alcoholism. That is not the stuff that local TV gets stereotyped as covering, is it?
I asked Rick what story we should all consider taking on and he points us to a big one: workers' compensation. He explains in today's guest column:
One of the issues I've covered at KARE repeatedly over the years focuses on the inadequacies/inequalities of the workers' compensation system in my home state of Minnesota and throughout the nation.
Congressional sources peg the number of work-related fatalities in this country at 6,000 a year, with millions more injured.
Injured workers -- or survivors of those killed -- really cannot sue a company for wrongful death. The workers' compensation system involves its own judges, in its own courts, with its own laws.
The idea behind workers' comp is to guarantee swift and sufficient aid to injured workers (or the families of workers killed on the job) while seriously limiting the legal liability of the companies they work for. The federal government defines it
this way. [PDF]
There is a general belief that in this system, everybody gives something up and everybody gets something in return. But that idea can be misleading. The reality is, in many cases workers' comp laws end up simply protecting companies that refuse to follow the basic safety laws -- the laws designed to protect workers.
The question arises: If a worker is killed, or seriously injured, as a direct result of a company that refuses to obey safety laws, why is that company afforded any protection under the law? (The inspiration for my reporting on workers' comp is
this Frontline/New York Times investigation from several years ago.)
Defenders of the system say companies give up a lot by having to buy insurance to cover workers -- even when the worker is clearly to blame for his own injury or death. But the reality is, there's a whole host of legal exceptions for companies. And there are virtually none for employees.
A corporation does not have to pay out
any damages to a worker when it can show that the employee wasn't following the rules. Or if the worker was drunk or high. Faced with these facts, the worker is literally left with nothing.
But there is no similar trump card for employees who'd like to go after their company if they are hurt (or killed) as a direct result of the company violating safety laws. That would mean nothing under the law; that worker would be limited to the specified, limited damages under workers' comp law.
In fact, the only way an employee or his family can override the workers' comp law is by proving the employer actually intended to hurt or kill him. That's generally very difficult to do.
And for workers who die without dependents, it is sometimes cheaper for the employer to pay the limited death benefits than to pay for the protection needed. In Minnesota, prior to a legislative change in 2000, the death benefit for a worker with no dependents was $25,000, payable to the state special compensation fund. Not until 2000 did the law recognize the need to compensate the survivors with payment to the decedent's estate in the amount of $60,000 -- still a minimal amount for the death of an employee.
Here's a sample of my local/Minneapolis reporting on the subject.
The mother of one Minnesota victim went to law school to become a lawyer to fight the issue.
Her position paper [PDF] is compelling.
Resources to cover this story
This commercial Web site provides workers' comp resources for journalists trying to cover the issue. The site also provides
state-by-state workers' comp laws.
United Support and Memorial For Workplace Fatalities is a good resource for families of those killed or seriously injured on the job.
For years, WFAA-TV in Dallas
has been doing award-winning stories on the problems in the Texas workers' comp system.
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