Michael Grabell

“Ugh,” “argh,” or a moan. That's what I typically hear from injured workers when they describe their experience maneuvering the workers’ compensation (WC) system. The trouble runs the gamut from insurers refusing to authorize treatment by specialists (e.g., an orthopedist,) to insisting they return to work despite their own physicians’ opinions that doing so will cause more harm, to only being paid a portion of their lost wages. Well, if workers have it bad under WC, an alternative system looks even worse. ProPublica’s Michael Grabell and National Public Radio’s Howard Berkes report on…
By Dan Neal Ensuring that U.S. workers return home from work healthy and in one piece requires pushing OSHA and other agencies to do more at the state and national levels to improve standards and aggressively enforce them. Meanwhile, health and safety advocates and workers must speak out loudly for worker rights, especially to protect workers who simply report safety problems at their jobs and to protect whistleblowers who reveal criminal behavior. Those points were discussed last week in Baltimore at the 2015 National Conference on Worker Safety and Health. More than 280 workplace safety and…
A quick way to lose someone in a conversation is to mention workers' comp.  No doubt I’ve already lost readers because my headline included the phrase. But you’ll think differently about the topic if you take a look at this week’s reporting by ProPublica and National Public Radio. Read just the first 400 words of “The Demolition of Workers’ Comp” and you’ll be hooked on the story. Yesterday morning, investigative reporters Michael Grabell and Howard Berkes discussed their reporting with NPR host David Greene. In the interview they noted: “Since 2003, more than 30 states have passed laws that…