Congress and US DOL using H1N1 scare to push for mandatory paid sick leave.

Look out employers, the Deputy Secretary of Labor, Seth Harris, gave a testimony on November 10^th, 2009, to a Senate Subcommittee pushing for mandatory paid sick leave. Using the national concern over the H1N1 flu, the Deputy Secretary explained the US DOL strongly supports the Healthy Families Act of 2009. Highlights of the Healthy Families Act include:

·        Paid time of to care for yourself, child, spouse, parent, or any other individual related by blood of affinity;  or absence resulting from domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking

·        employees accrue 1 hour of paid sick leave for each 30 worked, no exceptions for part time workers

·        mandatory carry over, however a cap of 56 hours of sick leave accrued at any given time may be used

·        physician certification can only be requested if leave is greater than 3 consecutive days, employees have 30 days to provide certification

·        severe penalties will be accessed for discharging, discriminating or using the taking of paid sick time as a negative factor in employment action (such as hiring, promoting or disciplinary action)

See Also

• Full testimony of Deputy Secretary Harris
  Remarks Prepared for Delivery by U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis - Testimony of Deputy Secretary of Labor Seth Harris’ before the Subcommittee on Children and Families Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, United States Senate, Washington, DC, November 10, 2009

As the end of 2009 is getting closer, StaffScapes, Inc. wants to remind its FSA participates to use all of the funds available in their FSA accounts.

Some of the expenses that are eligible to be reimbursed under qualified Flexible Spending Accounts are:

-Deductible & Co-pays

-Contacts/glasses and eye exams

-Prescriptions co-pays

-Dental treatments

-Over-the-counter medications

-and many more!

Please contact StaffScapes, Inc. to get a full list of eligible expenses

***Receipts must be dated for services rendered in 2009 and must be submitted by March 31, 2010.

If you would like more information regarding the Flexible Benefit plan or would like to participate in the 2009 FSA program, please contact StaffScapes Benefit Department at (303) 466-7864.

How does reviewing past claims help my business save money with Workers Compensation Insurance?

Today StaffScapes is meeting with representatives from Pinnacol Assurance to review past claim history. This is a very valuable tool for all for all business that have had workers compensation claims. By reviewing claims a business is able to see trends that a supervisor of a department may not notice because of all the other jobs a person is doing. Many times a review will allow a company to look at history and just not at today’s work and what is going on.

When you review claims you can also target claims to learn who was using safety equipment and who was not and compare similar claims and the cost associated with it. We have a small manufacture with 50 or so employees that kept having small eye injuries. Most of the employee did not bother to where the safety glasses when cutting parts and this was the leading cause of injury. After further review we noticed many employee had been using the proper safety equipment and still employees where getting hurt. Material was flying in behind the glasses or around the edge of the traditional safety glasses. By changing the type of glasses used we where able to cut injuries down the fowling year. By not reviewing the claims with the client this type of injury could lead to a very expensive claim or much worse someone losing site because of a work related injury. 

If you have any type of ongoing injury you should be siting down with your workers compensation provider or your Professional employer Organization (PEO) and do a claims review. During this claim review you should also question open claims to be sure that all cost saving measures are being looked at.

To learn more about safety programs, loss prevention and ways to reduce your Workers Compensation Liability contact StaffScapes at 303-466-7864 .