By two strokes of the pen, Governor Voinovich and his Republican cohorts have eliminated the most common injury in Ohio's workplace from effective coverage under Ohio's Worker's Compensation law.
Senate Bill 45 in the Ohio Senate writes a new classification for "occupational diseases" that excludes such as repetitive movement injuries -- carpal tunnel syndrome, for instance. Women are the most likely to receive these type of injuries and more and more women are now entering the workforce.
The bill also eliminates many other occupational diseases that are currently accepted for Worker's Compensation. "Occupational diseases" only account for 3% of claims, yet this bill will eliminate many of those. The most conservative estimate of occupationally caused cancer deaths is about 520 in Ohio each year. Ohio Worker's Comp only paid on nine of these claims. That, apparently, was nine too many for our Guv.
There is also language in the bill that compensates only for "impairment" not "disability." This will drastically reduce compensation for an injured worker. It reduces wage loss benefits to 26 weeks and the amount of time an injured worker can be compensated cut from ten years to five years. It also makes secret the Bureau of Worker's Compensation Safety and Hygiene Division workplace accident investigation records.
S.B. 45 is "unfair, arbitrary and unreasonable" and has to be stopped!
Contact your Ohio Senator to voice your concerns on S.B. 45.
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