News From USW: Texas Supreme Court Decision on Remedy for Injured Contract Workers Rewards Negligen

News From USW: The Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Entergy v. Summers to limit contract workers to workers’ compensation benefits when they are injured at a plant they are visiting puts the burden of recovery on the workers and protects corporate wrongdoers, says the United Steelworkers union (USW). The union urges a rehearing of the case.

“This decision rewards negligent employers who fail to maintain a safe workplace,” said USW International Vice President Gary Beevers. “Without the ability to sue companies where they work when they get injured, the contractors end up shouldering the cost of their injuries and the employers avoid liability except for the cost of workers’ compensation coverage.

“If Entergy v. Summers had been in effect when the BP explosion occurred at Texas City in March 2005, BP would have escaped at least $1.5 billion in liability and we would have never known the extent of the corporation’s wrongdoing. It was only through the legal process that we were able to get access to documents that revealed the company’s disregard for safety,” Beevers said.

The Texas Supreme Court removed a major incentive for employers to maintain a safe workplace—the threat of litigation.

“This threat is the only way we can force companies to make dangerous workplaces safer,” said USW International Vice President Tom Conway. “Regulation and enforcement is practically nonexistent under the Bush administration. OSHA did not perform a single comprehensive planned inspection at a single refinery in the entire country between 1995 and 2005.

“Without this threat, worker injuries and deaths become just a cost of doing business. BP managers made exactly this calculation when they figured the cost of providing a safe workplace versus the liability they might face for failing to do so,” Conway added.

Texas statute mandates that the Court interpret the Labor Code to promote public over private interests. The Court’s decision goes against this by benefiting large corporations.

Worker’s compensation was never intended to compensate an injured worker fully and deals with compensation only and not prevention of an unsafe workplace. Benefits decrease dramatically regardless of the severity of the injury. Even though a worker may not be recovered or be able to fully recover, he or she is thrown out of the system when the benefits end. Workers’ compensation also does not include non-economic damages like the pain and suffering of a worker burned severely on the job and the costs his or her family bear because of the injury.

“Workers’ compensation is totally inadequate when it comes to refinery explosions,” said USW District 13 Director Mickey Breaux. “We had an explosion on Feb. 23, 1999 at the Tosco refinery in California. The survivors of the three contract workers killed sued the company and were awarded $21 million in damages. One of the refinery employees jumped off the tower while ablaze from the blast and broke every bone in his body. He underwent at least 24 surgeries, numerous skin grafts and the amputation of his fingers and a thumb on one hand. He is confined to a wheelchair. His only remedy was workers’ compensation and now that is gone.

“Whether you like it or not, the threat of litigation is often times the only way to get companies to make the necessary expenditures to have a safe workplace,” Breaux added

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