Tag Archives: wage and hour

Failure of Weil nomination heralds more of the same for federal involvement in workers’ comp.

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Democratic Senators Joe Manchin, West Virginia, joined Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelley, Arizona, and 50 Republicans to torpedo the nomination of Professor David Weil to the head of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour division.

Weil, who held the same position during the Obama administration, was a critic of gig economy firms like Uber who misclassify workers as independent contractors. Independent contractor status exempts companies from having to comply with wage and employment laws such as workers’ compensation.

Readers of this blog, likely know state workers’ compensation laws determine whether a worker is an employee and that is a separate analysis about what constitutes an employee for purposes of federal law. Readers of this blog also know that Weil likely would have ran into a steel re-enforced concrete wall of the federal judiciary in trying to enforce federal wage and hour laws for the benefit of workers.

But the failure of Weil likely signals that there is likely no substantive federal legislation that will address deficiencies in state workers’ compensation laws. In 1970, Congress established OSHA and authorized National Commission on State Workers’ Compensation Laws in response to concerns over the sufficiency of state workers’ compensation laws. The recommendation of the Commission lead many states to improve workers’ compensation laws for the benefit of workers.

But if the Senate can’t even confirm someone like Weill to the Department of Labor, then it seems unlikely that the federal government will do anything to improve state workers’ compensations laws.

Many lawyers who represent injured workers take Ronald Reagan’s adage about the government to heart in their practices when it comes to federal law. Whether it’s the byzantine workers’ compensation laws for federal employees, the difficulties of ERISA liens, headaches with Medicare in settling cases or what Professor Michael Duff describes as empty pre-emptions around nuclear workers and air ambulances, workers’ compensation plaintiff’s lawyers are often among the most vehement supporters of state’s rights.

But as evidenced by OSHA and the National Commission, the federal government can be a positive influence on workers’ compensation. But for most workers’ compensation lawyers in practice today, federal law and federal agencies are just another hurdle to overcome in getting justice for client’s injured at work. Unfortunately, that reality doesn’t look to change anytime soon.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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How to get paid regular wages for missing work due to a medical visit in a workers’ compensation case

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Can an injured worker claim their regular pay if they go to a medical appointment as part of their workers compensation claim? The answer is yes. But like most legal questions there are always qualifications.

Why you can get paid wages for workers’ compensation medical visits
First, per the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and federal regulation 29 CFR 785.43, getting paid for time spent going to a doctor applies when the employee seeks treatment on site or during regular work hours. An employee might have a harder time claiming pay if they are forced to seek medical treatment during non-work hours. But I believe it would be a close and interesting legal issue if time spent going to employer-compelled medical treatment during non-work hours would be covered under the FLSA.

Secondly, per case law, it seems like that medical treatment would need to be expressly authorized and set up by the employer.  It might be more difficult for an employee to get paid their wages while taking time off of work for medical treatment in a disputed workers’ compensation case.

Another complication may be if an employee takes paid leave to attend an employer-ordered medical appointment. Arguably since paid leave or paid time off isn’t mandated by law it might be difficult to bring a claim under the FLSA for the forced taking of paid leave. State wage and hour laws like the Nebraska Wage Payment and Collection Act may provide a remedy.

Why wage and hour law can be better than workers’ compensation claims when it comes to wage payment issues

So why would an injured worker want to claim unpaid wages instead of temporary disability? Several reasons, in Nebraska temporary total disability pays two-thirds of your pay and temporary partial disability pays two-thirds the difference between reduced hours and your average weekly wage. But under wage and hour law, a workers can claim their full wages for time spent going to certain medical visits as part of their workers’ compensation claim.

In Nebraska, overtime pay is not taken into account in determining workers compensation benefits. But under the Fair Labor Standards Act an employee can claim overtime pay. The Nebraska Workers compensation act also caps benefit rates at $882 per week. There is no cap to hourly pay under the FLSA.

Nebraska also has a one week waiting period for benefits. In injuries where disability lasts less than six weeks, that first week of disability isn’t paid. There is no waiting period for unpaid wages under the FLSA.

I’ve written about how the Nebraska workers’ compensation act has weak attorney fee and penalty provisions that make it easy for employers to shortchange employees when it comes to workers compensation disability benefit payments. In contrast the FLSA has strong attorney fee and penalty provisions that make it more attractive to bring claims for smaller amounts. Smaller FLSA claims can also be combined into collective action claims.  The Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act, like most of other workers’ compensation laws, does not allow for collective or class action cases.

The only disadvantage of getting wages over workers’ compensation benefits is wages are taxable while workers compensation benefits are not taxable.

How an employee can bring a wage claim for time spent going to the doctor for workers’ compensation case.

The most important part of a wage and hour case for a worker is being able to precisely prove lost time. This should be simple for injured workers as medical visits usually only take place a few times a week at the most. Many injured workers keep track of mileage already as mileage benefits are part of medical benefits under workers’ compensation in Nebraska. If you can keep track of mileage, you can also keep track of time spent going to medical appointments. If an injured worker turns in mileage to their attorney or workers compensation claims department, there is no reason they can’t turn over claims for unpaid wages to Human Resources directly or through their attorneys.

Anti-retaliation provisions

Retaliation is always a concern of workers who exercise their rights at work. Fortunately, the FLSA makes it unlawful for an employer to retaliate against an employee for exercising their rights under the law. Nebraska and most other states prohibit employers from retaliating against workers who file workers compensation as well.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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Why Lincoln and Omaha probably won’t be following NYC in a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers

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New York City recently implemented a $17 per hour minimum wage for drivers for riding hailing apps like Uber and Lyft. I wouldn’t expect similar measures exapnding wage and hour and/or workers’ compensation to gig economy workers in Omaha or Lincoln for two main reasons.

Local governments in Nebraska have their powers limited by the state

The first hurdle to a city minimum wage or city workers’ comepnsation laws in Lincoln or Omaha is the state constitution. Nebraska courts have held that only the state can regulate the employee-employer relationship unless the legislature authorizes a city or county to do so. The state has authorized cities and counties to draft civil rights ordinances.  Omaha and Lincoln have human rights commissions similar to the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission.

But the Legislature has not authorized local governments to implement their own minimum wage or workers’ compensation laws. No such legislation was introduced to that effect this year in Nebraska. In neighboring Missouri, the Missouri legislature reversed an attempt by the City of St. Louis to increase the minimum wage in that city above the state minimum wage. In short, I believe it would be unlikely that Nebraska would authorize local governments to implement their own workers’ compensation and wage laws in the near future.

Even if cities in Nebraska could enact wage and hour and workers’ compensation ordinances, it seems unlikely that cities would do so to cover gig economy workers.

There doesn’t appear to much political will among cities in Nebraska – even in Democratic-controlled Lincoln – to expand employee protections to ride hailing drivers. In fact, the Lincoln City council voted in 2017 to exempt Uber and Lyft drivers from the same licensing requirements as taxi drivers.

In fairness, Lincoln had a long history of being poorly served by a taxi cab monopoly. Complaints about regulatory fairness from former monopolists fell on deaf ears. But Lincoln’s taxi monopoly was broken in 2012 before the rise of ride hailing apps. Lincoln and Omaha lack an organized voice for drivers like they have in New York City. Without such a voice, worker classification issues among urban professional drivers will likely continue to be unheard at a state and local level in Nebraska.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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