Thread: Illegals on their own if injured on the job (another sob sto

Published: 09.17.2006

Illegals on their own if injured on the job
By Liz Chandler
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
local angle
● Arizona's 1925 workers' compensation law says workers eligible for benefits include "aliens and minors legally or illegally permitted to work for hire."
The Arizona Supreme Court soon will decide exactly what that means — whether illegal immigrants are eligible for workers' compensation benefits here.
"We are looking for clarification," said Christa Severns, a spokeswoman for SCF Arizona, the state's top workers' comp insurer.
The case started with Jose Luis Gonzalez Gamez, an illegal immigrant in Mesa who injured his back in 2001 while working for Thunderbird Furniture. A court decided in 2003 that he wasn't eligible for permanent disability benefits, and Gamez asked the Court of Appeals to overturn the decision. The appeals court ruled Gamez's claim could be resolved based on his medical circumstance.
Judge Daniel Barker published a special opinion on the case, saying the "legal or illegal" phrase in the law applies to minors, not illegal immigrants, who should not be eligible for benefits.
That opinion created a gray area, Severns said. If illegal immigrants aren't eligible for benefits, they may be eligible to sue their employers if they are injured, which goes against Arizona's "no fault" system.
Whatever the Arizona Supreme Court decides, the gray area may require clarification from the Legislature.
A bill introduced by Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, during the last legislative session would have excluded illegal immigrants from eligibility to receive benefits, but the bill was unsuccessful.
— Becky Pallack
CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. — Jose Hernandez was good with a machete. So he was the top choice when his boss needed someone to chop down young trees that were choking parts of Florida's Everglades.
On one trip to the swamps, the workers flew in by helicopter and quickly cut a stand of sprouting trees. But when they took off again, something went wrong: The chopper lurched left, then plunged into murky water.
A broken rotor blade slashed through Hernandez's left thigh.
Doctors saved his life but couldn't save his leg.
To pay for his costly medical care, Hernandez filed a workers' compensation claim, which covered some of his bills.
Then, the insurance carrier, Florida Citrus, Business & Industries Fund, discovered that Hernandez was in America illegally, without work papers or permission from federal immigration officials. It halted all payments and left Hernandez to languish in a low-income Florida nursing home, unable to work to support his wife and four children in Mexico.
Thousands of illegal workers like Hernandez are hurt on the job every year in America but don't get the compensation that's promised by law in every state.
Bosses often fire them, threaten them with deportation and commit an array of other misdeeds to avoid responsibility for workers' injuries. Some insurers refuse to pay their claims, citing reasons related to their illegal status.
As a result, injured workers often go without medical care or go to emergency rooms for treatment — and taxpayers get stuck with the bills.
"It's a violation of the American spirit," said Florida lawyer Gerry Rosenthal, who represents Hernandez. "Employers are hiring these people and pushing them hard to make a profit for the company, but when a worker gets hurt, they abandon him."
Dirty and dangerous jobs
From field hands to garment workers to poultry processors to construction crews, injuries abound in industries that rely on an estimated 7 million undocumented workers, often to do dirty and dangerous jobs. Yet those who are undocumented are frequently cheated out of benefits that American workers have taken for granted for nearly a century, a McClatchy Newspapers investigation has found.
Federal labor officials haven't studied whether undocumented workers are wrongfully being denied compensation. But the exploitation is rampant, according to interviews with scores of illegal workers, employers, workers' comp lawyers, health-care providers and workplace experts, and a review of lawsuits and workers' comp claims.
In one national study, university researchers surveyed 2,660 day laborers, most of them working illegally. One in five said he had suffered a work injury. Among those who were hurt in the last year, 54 percent said they didn't receive the medical care they needed, and only 6 percent got workers' comp benefits.
Employers in at least 20 states, arguing that their employees shouldn't receive injury benefits because they're illegal immigrants, have fought and lost in courts and review boards.
Among those employees were a California laborer who hurt his back lifting sacks of coffee, an Arizona auto mechanic who was hit in the eye by flying debris, a Maryland carpenter who cut his hand on a saw, and a North Carolina construction worker who suffered a brain injury when he fell 30 feet onto a concrete floor.
Safety programs fail workers
The U.S. Department of Labor tracks workplace deaths and injuries, but officials haven't assessed how undocumented workers fare. The only hint is the climbing and disproportionate number of workplace deaths among Hispanic and foreign-born workers, which includes many of those who are working illegally.
Workplace safety programs also are failing these workers, as the number of inspections and the staffers to do them has declined. The nation's 2,300 inspectors check 1 percent of 7 million employers each year, and critics say fines are so low that risky operators consider them a cost of doing business.
"The regulators are rooted in paralysis," said insurance analyst Peter Rousmaniere, who has studied abuses of undocumented workers in a dozen states. "They don't want to acknowledge these workers exist — so, in effect, they are allowing them to be abused."
Workers' compensation is regulated by the states, but most simply offer review boards to settle disputes. Few states look for abuses of undocumented workers, and some adopt regulations that freeze illegal workers out of injury benefits.
Florida recently rejected hundreds of workers' comp claims because they didn't include Social Security numbers, a procedure the state Supreme Court halted last year because the requirement violated privacy laws.
"Old rules don't fit"
A few states — Florida, Michigan and Kansas — allow employers to limit benefits or fine injured workers who use phony Social Security numbers.
"What you have is 20th-century legal principles trying to catch up with the 21st-century reality of a global work force," said Bill Beardall, a lawyer and professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
local angle
● Arizona's 1925 workers' compensation law says workers eligible for benefits include "aliens and minors legally or illegally permitted to work for hire."
The Arizona Supreme Court soon will decide exactly what that means — whether illegal immigrants are eligible for workers' compensation benefits here.
"We are looking for clarification," said Christa Severns, a spokeswoman for SCF Arizona, the state's top workers' comp insurer.
The case started with Jose Luis Gonzalez Gamez, an illegal immigrant in Mesa who injured his back in 2001 while working for Thunderbird Furniture. A court decided in 2003 that he wasn't eligible for permanent disability benefits, and Gamez asked the Court of Appeals to overturn the decision. The appeals court ruled Gamez's claim could be resolved based on his medical circumstance.
Judge Daniel Barker published a special opinion on the case, saying the "legal or illegal" phrase in the law applies to minors, not illegal immigrants, who should not be eligible for benefits.
That opinion created a gray area, Severns said. If illegal immigrants aren't eligible for benefits, they may be eligible to sue their employers if they are injured, which goes against Arizona's "no fault" system.
Whatever the Arizona Supreme Court decides, the gray area may require clarification from the Legislature.
A bill introduced by Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, during the last legislative session would have excluded illegal immigrants from eligibility to receive benefits, but the bill was unsuccessful.
— Becky Pallack
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/146941

Once again the bleeding hearts ruin it. The bill regarding illegals getting compensation should have been passed. Common people illegal does mean against the law. This political correctness and bleeding heart nonsense has to stop.

Those old antiquated laws worked just fine for disputes between legal employers and legal workers. Allowing immigration law to fall by the wayside resulted in today's problems. We will fix it.

Illegal alien invaders are

the 21st-century reality of a global work force," said Bill Beardall

I lived in Houston for 6 years and worked in low voltage. When Illegal
immigrant workers were seriously hurt on the job they were put in the back of a pickup and dropped off outside the emergency room door.

no insurance no workmans comp no continuing pay check nada

This is what happens when the illegal crossed the border illegally and the employer hires him illegally. They both know better and choose to disregard the immigration laws.

Originally Posted by jimpasz

I lived in Houston for 6 years and worked in low voltage. When Illegal
immigrant workers were seriously hurt on the job they were put in the back of a pickup and dropped off outside the emergency room door.

no insurance no workmans comp no continuing pay check nada

Incredible that this administration and ABG Gonzales support this kind of treatment of human beings on behalf of unscrupulous businesses. This company also shifted its' employee costs onto the local hospital and tax/insurance paying citizens with the blessing of the federal government.

Seal the border, enforce law!