State to Report On Employee Injuries, Costs

State to Report On Employee Injuries, Costs


Governor Spitzer last week signed into law a bill requiring the state Department of Civil Service to annually report employee injuries and related costs to help agencies create prevention strategies.

KENNETH BRYNIEN: Law long overdue. Kenneth Brynien, the president of the Public Employees' Federation, hailed the signing of the Workplace Injury Disclosure and Accountability measure.

"The Governor recognizes ... the importance of work-related injury in state agencies and improving safety programs," Mr. Brynien said in a statement. "This law is long overdue and will go a long way in helping state agency managers and union leaders to identify trends and reduce Workers' Compensation costs by preventing injury and illness on the job."

Track 'Comp' by Agency

The legislation was sponsored by State Sen. Joseph Robach and Assemblywoman Susan John.

According to PEF, injured state employees' Workers' Comp claims will cost the state $220 million this fiscal year.

Under the bill, the Civil Service Department must report those Workers' Comp cases by agency as well as the amount of lost work time and cost-of-wage replacement and medical expenses. The legislation also calls for a list of the job titles with work-related injury and illness rates that are more than 25 percent above the average for all state agencies.

The comprehensive report, which has not been compiled for 15 years, must be published by Sept. 13 of each year, starting in 2008. Mr. Brynien said the information could be used to reduce injuries in the workplace, which has been a key element of PEF's Stop Workplace Violence campaign.

Other Initiatives

In 2005, the union mounted an aggressive drive urging the State Legislature to pass bills requiring managers to implement workplace-violence prevention programs, report injuries, and enact better safeguards for health workers conducting home visits.

The Workplace Violence Prevention legislation was signed into law in June 2006. That measure requires departments with more than 20 employees to assess risk and develop and implement a written plan of action to prevent potential workplace violence, the union said.

At the start of the campaign, PEF distributed DVDs and brochures to state legislators outlining arguments supporting the workplace-violence prevention measures. PEF is the second largest state-employee union, representing 57,000 professional, scientific and technical workers. The Civil Service Employees' Association has also backed the campaign, running television ads supporting the legislation in 2006.

PEF is still lobbying for the Judi Scanlon bill (S3101/A2316), named after a PEF-represented health-care worker who was murdered by a mentally ill patient while conducting a home visit in Buffalo in 1998. The legislation, which was passed in the Senate but remains stuck in the Assembly's Mental Health Committee, would allow Intensive Case Managers (ICM) to request accompaniment by a colleague during home visits for safety reasons.