Workers' Comp Costs Rising in Los Angeles

CBS Channel 2 Los Angeles ^ | 7 Jan. 2002 | AP

[thesharkboy]

The city has failed to rein in workers' compensation costs that likely will reach a record $113 million this year, according to a newspaper report.

The Los Angeles Daily News reported Monday that workers' compensation costs have increased more than 50 percent since 1997 and reform efforts have fared so poorly that as many as 10 percent of city employees are receiving benefits at any given time.

With up to 4,000 of the city's 40,000 person work force getting workers' compensation benefits, work is either ignored or the city has to hire more employees to make up for those not on the job.

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[thesharkboy]

I know--some people get injured on the job and have deserved workers' comp benefits. But ten percent of the workforce at any given time? Sounds like some people need to be taken off the workers' comp rolls and into compulsory county/state housing for a while.

[DoughtyOne]

At my former hospital our housekeeping department hired low income immigrants. (Hey, what could I do?) At any rate there was a problem with workman's comp. By the time the hospital found a way to stop the abuse, half their employees were out on workman's comp claims. The only way they could react was to contract in the housekeeping services. Workman's comp has been a servere problem out here. Of course the libs in Sacramento can't be bothered with anything other than anti-gun legislation right now. Business has to wait.

[thesharkboy]

There's nothing wrong with hiring low income immigrants (or were they illegal immigrants?). This is definitely a problem here, but something of which I was completely unaware. Working in the software industry, I know people with repetitive stress injuries, none of whom ever files a workers' comp claim. They just get a new keyboard, those wrist thingies, and go on working.

[DoughtyOne]

I believe they were actually legal. One never knows conclusively. The problem was that the word got around that they could claim a back injury and get away with it. And so one by one over half of them did.