Covers Injury Data
Workplace Report Skimps on Details

By REUVEN BLAU

The city's first annual report detailing workplace injuries and illnesses has left much to be desired, health advocates and City Council Members said last week.

JOSEPH P. ADDABBO JR.: A blizzard of paper.

The more-than 500-page document doesn't include an executive summary and index or list job titles. "It may be an unworkable report," said Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., the chair of the City Council's Civil Service and Labor Committee.

Help Cut Comp Costs?

On Aug. 25, 2004, Mayor Bloomberg signed a bill into law requiring city agencies to list employee injuries and illnesses. It was introduced by the Council after health activists said the city had rebuffed their repeated attempts to obtain the data from the various departments.

Supporters of the bill said that tracking the injury figures would enable the city to reduce its burgeoning Workers' Compensation costs as well as redefine the city's effort to prevent employee injuries in the future.

The city spends between $160 million and $180 million per year on such payments, according to Joel Shufro, executive director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH).

JOEL SHUFRO: Law Department omits details.

The bill's main sponsor, Queens Councilman James F. Gennaro, noted that the report technically complies with the law. "The exact report was generated," he remarked during a Nov. 22 phone interview. "And now there is an interest in getting the raw data."

The Council will look into amending the bill to require the city to include an index and summary in future reports, Mr. Addabbo said last week. "The accessibility of this report is something that we are going to have deal with," he commented. "I'm optimistic that we can resolve this with the administration."

The Council has scheduled two oversight hearings to review workplace violence and injury issues brought up in the report, he added. Those conferences will be held on Dec. 4 and 12.

'Stonewalled by City'

Mr. Shufro said that NYCOSH offered to meet and "help develop a meaningful report" with the Law Department, the agency in charge of gathering all the information and drafting the document. "But we were stonewalled," he remarked. "City agencies refused to meet with us. That is unconscionable as far as I'm concerned."

JAMES GENNARO: Report needs sharpening.

Councilman Gennaro acknowledged that was an issue. "NYCOSH is less than satisfied with the report being produced," he said. "It's looked upon by NYCOSH as not being good enough."

NYCOSH is a non-profit coalition of 250 local unions and 400 public health-care professionals. The group had been lobbying for the legislation for years.

According to Mr. Shufro, the Mayor's Office was given additional data, which was never included by the Law Department. "The report that was issued excluded the full range of information to which the Mayor's Office was provided," he said. "They leave out things like the job title."

Pinpointing Problems

The entire point of the law, he continued, was to supply the information needed to determine which employees are injured on the job and where those accidents are occurring. "Are there a disproportionate number of back injuries in a particular agency?" he asked. "And if so, we could develop a program that would help reduce that particular injury. It would not make sense to do a citywide program on back injuries if we found out only one city agency had that problem."

A Law Department spokeswoman maintained that the city complied with the bill. "We gathered the facts the legislation required us to and submitted it in accordance with the law," Kimberly Miu said.

Mssrs. Addabbo and Gennaro, however, contended that the report needed to be adjusted. "It should be a report that fulfills its intended purpose," Mr. Gennaro said. "If this report cannot provide that tool, then we have to somehow make it into a tool that will fulfill its purpose."

'Who's Gonna Read This?'

Mr. Addabbo called the bill a "good piece of legislation," but he noted that the report was only e-mailed. "Who's going to read 500 pages on their computers?" he asked incredulously. "And who's going to print out 500 pages? I'm certainly not going to." With the proper data, the city can target the most dangerous titles and workplaces, Mr. Shufro said. "It would be a win-win situation for the city and worker," he remarked.

The city would be able to save approximately $9 million if it reduced its Workers' Comp costs by a mere five percent, according to Mr. Shufro. "That's not chump change," he said. "Needless to say, it would also reduce unnecessary suffering."

At Council hearings before the bill was signed, Mr. Shufro noted that several private-sector companies have minimized accidents and injuries and saved millions of dollars by introducing programs designed to reduce Workers' Comp claims.

The city's risk management officer position, however, was eliminated under Mayor Giuliani.

The Bloomberg administration initially opposed the bill, claiming that state law already governs disclosure requirements. The city also contended that the bill would force it to add personnel in order to record the required data. But a study conducted by the Council Finance Division concluded the bill carried no cost to the city because the necessary staff was already in place.

The modified bill did not include uniformed workers and Teachers. Those employees are not eligible for Workers' Compensation but are instead entitled to special benefits for line-of-duty injuries, such as full pay and unlimited leave with proper medical authorization. The bill does cover the city's approximately 22,000 school paraprofessionals.

Paras assigned to special-education classes work in a high-risk environment and often perform job duties similar to a nurse, United Federation of Teachers officials have said. The UFT has detected a pattern of rising accidents, assaults, and injuries, based on internal union reports and anecdotal evidence.

The union has contended that many workers don't report injuries because of the complicated and bureaucratic process, and in some cases intimidation by supervisors.

Reluctant to Report

A 2004 survey by the UFT showed that approximately half of all paras said they had been assaulted, and about a third reported that they are repeatedly injured on the job. However, less than 1 percent of them reported the incidents, the survey said.

As for the overall report, Mr. Shufro said that it was "not completely useless." He continued, "There is still information that we now have about how much each agency is spending on Workers' Comp."

But he quickly added, "It is much less useful than what we had hoped to get from the city."

Mr. Addabbo noted that such reports often must be amended. "Every first report will have questions and issues," he said. "We will digest it after the hearing; everyone will have their moments to address their concerns."

But he questioned the city's position on the issue. "Is the administration interested in following and tracking illness?" he asked incredulously. "Well, if they are, they have a funny way of showing it."