Repetitive stress injuries do not discriminate. Anybody that performs the same physical task, over and over, day in and day out, is at risk of developing this type of injury. It might be a small movement, such as pulling products, typing on a keyboard, or twisting a...
Workers’ Compensation
Workers’ Compensation
The Bureau of Labor Statistics: the history of tracking workplace injuries
The early 1970s were simpler times, though nostalgia for those days should be leavened with caution: those were much more dangerous times for workers. In 1972, there were 10.9 cases of nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time workers. That rate...
What is overexertion and which workers are most susceptible to it?
It turns out there is reason to be concerned about working too hard. Liberty Mutual Insurance has long published a workplace safety index that lists the top causes of disabling workplace injuries. Topping the list for many years has been overexertion. In its 2020...
OSHA’s Top Ten violations
Longtime late-night talk show host David Letterman turned Top Ten lists into a running gag that entertained millions of viewers for years. However, there is nothing funny in the Top Ten Ten list recently issued by the federal government’s Occupational Health and...
Did an absenteeism punishment policy kill a Wisconsin worker?
Most full-time workers in the Milwaukee area receive a certain amount of paid sick leave every year. In theory, employees are encouraged to stay home if they are sick, both for their own health and to avoid spreading illness to their co-workers. But some employers...
Workplace Safety Index reveals most common and costly injuries
Liberty Mutual’s annual workplace safety index looks at on-the-job injuries from the employer’s perspective by drilling down into the data to figure out how often injuries occur and which injuries are the costliest for employers. While some of our Wisconsin Workers’...
Another look at Wisconsin workers’ comp during the pandemic
Even as Wisconsin businesses are gradually reopening, cases of COVID-19 are on the rise in the state. Will the recent rise in virus cases slow the reopening? No one yet knows, and because these matters are so fluid, it's unwise to make predictions. However, we do know...
Two railroad workers injured in tragic Wisconsin crash
If you drive southwest of Milwaukee for about an hour, you will arrive in Clinton, Wisconsin. The small Rock County town was recently the site of a motor vehicle crash. Two men were killed when their Jeep slammed into a Union Pacific work truck parked along a road...
More than 60 Years of workplace safety innovation
From the late 1960s and early ‘70s there emerged a new term and a new perspective on earning a living: workplace safety. Let’s take a look at more than six decades of safety innovation designed to reduce the frequency and severity of on-the-job injuries. Our...
The negative effects of PTSD on injured workers – Part II
As regular readers of our Wisconsin Workers’ Compensation Law Blog will undoubtedly recall, we recently wrote about the effects PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) can have on injured workers. Experts say PTSD has several main negative effects on those who have been...