Inside Corporate America's Plan to Ditch Workers' Comp

Odd, in that worker's comp sets a ceiling on damages, which many companies prefer. In major workplace injury cases you often see the company arguing that it's a worker's comp injury and the employee arguing that it's not.

The limits on damages under worker's comp are notoriously low -- for example, in most states a loss of a finger is a fixed payment of 16 weeks wages. Most juries would award much higher.

Plaintiffs lawyers (who normally take 33% of settlements) hate worker's comp because there's no lawsuit -- it's just a paperwork filing with no evidence required other than that the injury happened at work. It doesn't matter who is at fault, how the equipment was designed, etc.

This feels like there's another agenda at play that's not well explained in TFA. It sounds like a bit of a bootleggers and baptists coalition if plaintiffs' attorneys and companies are both in favor of something.

This leaves me feeling ill.

It strikes me as especially cynical that a push like this would come from the same bent that objects so strongly to state-sponsored healthcare, but is perfectly happy to pass the coverage buck to whoever's down the line--be it insurance or ultimately Medicare/Medicaid.

Binding arbitration: An end-run around the 7th amendment to the us constitution by the corporates.

As if they even need this. Having worked at a small construction company for a year, I've seen multiple worker's comp claims denied even when the injury is our fault. Worker's comp in general is flawed, but this scheme shows that the United States really don't care what happens to our nation's laborers as long as the lobbyists are happy.

What happens when an Uber or AirBnB "worker" gets injured? That's the corporate dream, and workers are doing it to themselves!