Teen workers have workplace rights but are not always aware of them. To gather ideas on how best to share information with teens about their rights and workplace protections, the U.S. Department of Labor is hosting a national online dialogue from April 19–30.

It should come as no surprise that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic decrease in unemployment rates in Arizona and the rest of the country.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, over 600,000 Arizonans have filed for unemployment thus far. That amounts to roughly 17 percent of the total state workforce.

What may be more of a surprise is that with higher unemployment comes a lower rate of workers’ compensation claims. This finding is based on data from multiple studies.

As it pertains to workers’ compensation laws, recognized Native American tribes are immune from having to comply with state workers’ compensation regulations. That said, the recognized tribes traditionally have taken 1 of 3 approaches to workers’ compensation.

Learn the connections between chronic pain, opioid painkillers and workers' comp professionals. See ways workers' comp professionals can be part of the solution. 

Is COVID-19 considered a work-related disease? Can I get coverage? Learn about the issues and challenges of obtaining workers’ compensation.

The emergence of the COVID-19 virus has impacted almost every aspect of our daily life, including the functioning of workers’ compensation claims.

Navigating a workers’ compensation claim is difficult enough during normal times. This already trying process has been made even more confusing, frustrating and scary during the current pandemic.

One of the biggest dilemmas currently facing injured workers’ is what to do if their employer (or their employer’s workers’ compensation insurance carrier) is trying to compel them to return to their job through the utilization of the WC-240 process.

Starting April 1, 2020, Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set Asides (WCMSAs) that are submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will need to include a new Consent to Release form. This means the settling claimant must now sign off that they understand the WCMSA process and approve the contents of the submission.

Misclassification of workers transfers costs from employers, to the taxpayers and other businesses.  During these unprecedented times with the COVID-19 virus, we see another cost shifting burden emerge.  When employees are wrongly classified as independent contractors, and work dries up because of a health emergency such as COVID-19, unemployment benefits are unavailable to those workers.  

Just days after a few workers' compensation courts and commissions suggested that it would be business as usual during the coronavirus outbreak, some have reversed course, and hearings, meetings and conferences around the country have been canceled.

Because I am a native Spanish-speaker and understand the Hispanic culture, I relate well to my immigrant and undocumented clients. Once I develop some rapport with them, usually by the end of the first hour, they tell me about a co-worker who injured his/her back/shoulder/leg some time before their injury but did not report it. Almost always, the person sitting across from me asks me if “suing” the employer will get him/her fired.