Posted on 01/18/2011 8:43:28 AM PST by KeyLargo
Lockdown, pay up
January 17, 2011
Here's something to digest with your big new Illinois income tax increase:
You would assume that the Menard Correctional Center is a dangerous place to work. It does, after all, hold violent prisoners. You probably wouldn't assume that the biggest injury risk for the guards is locking and unlocking the doors. Or that this is costing you a lot of money.
Illinois has paid out at least $10 million over the last three years in workers' compensation claims to employees at the southern Illinois prison. Much of the money has gone to corrections officers who say they suffered repetitive-stress injuries from, yes, locking and unlocking cells.
The Belleville News-Democrat reported last month that 389 guards and other workers have filed more than 500 work comp claims in those three years. The prison employs fewer than 800 people, including 567 guards.
That $10 million figure will grow. Many of the claims are still pending.
The warden, Dave Rednour, collected a $75,678 work comp award in June.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Sounds like carpal tunnel syndrome. That was a big one for the tort lawyers.
PS. Your freepname kind of fits this story in an odd way.
But carpal is repetitive. I can’t see how the guards spend their whole day locking/unlocking/locking/unlocking. I think Ill is the land of wimps and crooks - clearly hiring criteria for prison guards. They would make fine presidential material as well.
I know of a few Illinois politicians that should be on the inside of the gray bar hotel looking out instead of in.
Problem solved.
Huh? details, details?
I grew up about 5 miles from menard.They would have an escape about every 2 months or so, mostly trustees walking away from the farm.Being primarily a rural area, the convicts would head to the creek bottoms and you could hear the bloodhounds on the chase.One year a deputy from Chester gave a hitch hiker a ride who turned out to be an escapee. He, the convict, hancuffed the deputy to a tree and got away with the police car.
The newspaper also reported prison warden David Rednour, 35, received more than $75,000 in June when he was promoted to the job. The money was for repetitive trauma he said happened while he was a police officer, said Rich, who also represents Rednour.
Rich said he does not remember what caused Rednour’s injuries.
In addition, he received $9,196 in paid time off last year to recover from corrective surgery.
I have a relative who had been in Menard (inmate) for almost 20 years, has since moved to a different IDOC facility. He said this is the most bogus and corrupt situation, that there is no way the guards and employees can have the so-called injuries they claim to have. The warden and nurse, for example, really do not open and close the gates as some of the COs would, but they are on claim.
Meanwhile, IL cannot pay the bills for the food to feed the inmates.
WOW so you are familiar with Chester? Home of Popeye!!
Thomas Rich, a Fairview Heights attorney whose office has handled the bulk of the prison’s compensation claims since 2008.
Claims settlement records from the commission show that 86 of 98 claims for repetitive trauma filed in 2009 for Menard workers were brought by Rich’s office and were handled by the same lawyer from Madigan’s office, as well as the same state arbitrator or judge.
Yeah, grew up there, still have family in the area but I left home as a teenager 40 years ago.The prison and the nut house on the hill employs about half the town there.They didn’t really celebrate popeye back then as they do now. My mother is involved with that alot.
David Rednour’s Illinois workers’ compensation attorney, Thomas Rich, cited the so-called “last employer” clause in the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act allowing state employees to claim compensation for an accumulated injury. In this case, David Rednour claims his repetitive trauma began with his prior employer.
Prison wardens, too.
The warden, Dave Rednour, collected a $75,678 work comp award in June.
Apparently, just watching his guards lock and unlock prison cells can also cause "repetitive trauma". Sympathy pains, I suppose...
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