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Purchase, NY (PRWEB) September 26, 2011

According to the just-released business book “How to Save Big on Workers’ Compensation: With Insights from Leading Industry Experts” by industry veteran Adam Friedlander, creating a culture of caring for employees’ well-being is the single most important step in saving money on workers’ compensation.

A digestible guide for businesses large and small, human resources professionals and the insurance community, Friedlander offers actionable, money-saving ideas that enable employers to operate at optimal levels. “How to Save Big on Workers’ Compensation” features exclusive interviews with leading industry experts, including Larry LaPointe, former director of the Division of Confidential Investigations at the New York State Insurance Fund (NYSIF); Ed Hiller, director of Claims and Medical Operations for NYSIF; Brian Mittman, the managing partner of Markhoff & Mittman, a law firm that helps injured workers; Robert Firmbach, a veteran loss-control and safety expert; Eileen Preiato, the Friedlander Group Claims Solution™ manager; and Cosmo Preiato, executive vice president of Friedlander Group and head of Safety Group Underwriting and Operations.

The book also features success stories from a variety of businesses—restaurants, hotels, retailers—that detail their individual culture of caring and safety, which has ultimately led to increased productivity and profits.

“Workers’ compensation is a lightning rod for many employers” says Friedlander. “In comparison to payroll, rent and health insurance costs, workers’ comp is small. Nonetheless, most employers have a negative reaction to this expense. They believe workers’ comp is another tax and overregulation. Some don’t believe that employee claims are legitimate. The truth is that the costs to an organization generated by injured employees extend far beyond increased premiums. My book helps business owners realize that all claims are not beyond their control. Where safety is an integral part of the business culture, there are fewer claims, less fraud and lower premiums. Employers need to understand that their employees are their greatest asset. Can you win your World Series without your team working optimally?”

“How to Save Big on Workers’ Compensation: With Insights from Leading Industry Experts” is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble online. For more information, visit http://www.howtosavebigonworkerscompensation.com.

About the Author
Adam Friedlander is president of Friedlander Group, Inc., a workers’ compensation company for retailers, wholesalers, restaurants, hotels/motels and oil dealers in New York. Adam started his career in insurance in 1983, working for his father, Bert Friedlander. Bert began his career in the insurance industry working with his father, Harold Friedlander. In 1985, the Friedlander Group formed the first of seven workers’ compensation safety groups. Adam has published several articles on insurance and group self-insured workers’ compensation trusts.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Labor Department is signing agreements to share information with nearly a dozen states and the Internal Revenue Service as it gets more aggressive in its program to crack down on businesses that cheat workers out of their wages.

The information will help Labor officials target businesses that improperly label workers as independent contractors or as non-employees to deprive workers of minimum wage and overtime pay. Misclassifying workers also lets companies avoid paying workers compensation, unemployment insurance and federal taxes.

Patricia Smith, the Labor Department’s top lawyer, said sharing information between state and federal agencies could subject businesses to multiple fines.

“There’s more of an incentive to be in compliance because the cost of what we consider to be illegal activity has increased,” Smith said in an interview.

In the past, Smith said, a company might pay a single fine to a state agency for not making proper unemployment insurance payments. Under the new agreements, a state can share the information with the Labor Department, which also can seek fines and penalties for federal wage violations.

The violation also would be reported to the IRS, which can go after the company for unpaid taxes, Smith said.

States that have agreed to work with the Labor Department so far include Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Utah and Washington. Labor officials from New York and Illinois plan to sign up in the near future.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has made increased enforcement of federal wage-and-hour laws a top priority since she took office in 2009. The department has focused on industries where so-called “wage theft” is considered a problem, including the hotel, restaurant, janitorial, health care and day care industries.

Last month, the agency began targeting large U.S. homebuilders to see if they failed to pay workers the minimum wage or overtime.

“The urgency of addressing this issue has become more pronounced because we’re seeing these illegal business practices used by more and more industries, like restaurants,” said Nancy Leppink, head of the department’s Wage and Hour Division.

Earlier this year, for example, the department recovered over $219,000 in back wages for 44 Boston-area restaurant workers who were misclassified as independent contractors by two restaurants. The restaurants had failed to pay them overtime and also weren’t paying their payroll taxes.

Scott DeFife, a vice president for policy and government affairs at the National Restaurant Association, said his group works closely with members to navigate the “increasingly complex” federal and state rules governing wage and hour issues.

“We support 100 percent compliance with the law,” he said.

Leppink said employers who do follow the law are finding it difficult to compete against those businesses that are misclassifying their workers.

In 2010, the Labor Department collected nearly $4 million in back wages on behalf of about 6,500 employees who had been misclassified, a 400 percent increase over the amount collected in 2008. The department has hired about 300 additional investigators to probe wage theft complaints.

Leppink said getting more referrals from states would help the agency increase enforcement efforts. IRS officials said they could take case referrals from the Labor Department, but would not refer individual cases to any agency.

Follow the tabloid media, and you’d think that New York City has been swept by “bike bedlam,” a tide of scofflaw cyclists striking fear into the hearts of pedestrians everywhere. Sift through actual pedestrian safety data, and the actual risk posed by cyclists pales in comparison to that posed by motor vehicles: while over the last five years, 766 city pedestrians have been killed by drivers, only three were killed by cyclists. Even so, it’s generally been difficult to measure exactly how many — or how few — pedestrians are injured by cyclists every year.

New research from two Hunter College professors provides a precise count of pedestrian injuries caused by bikes in New York state. Using a comprehensive statewide database, sociologist Peter Tuckel and urban planner William Milczarski found that each year, an average of roughly 1,000 pedestrians received medical treatment after crashes with cyclists. A little over half of those injuries, 55 percent, took place in New York City.

Tuckel and Milczarski’s statistics show a larger number of pedestrians injured by cyclists than previous estimates; earlier research found that about 1,200 pedestrians nationwide are treated in emergency rooms each year as a result of bike crashes. But the new data also suggest that the injuries tend not to be severe. Statewide, an average about 85 pedestrians are admitted to hospitals as in-patients as a result of these crashes each year; the rest had injuries that could be treated on an out-patient basis.

For comparison’s sake, statewide, 15,321 pedestrians are injured by motor vehicles every year, according to the state DMV, with more than 10,000 of them in New York City. More than 300 pedestrians are killed by drivers every year statewide, while the number of pedestrian fatalities caused by cyclists averages less than one per year.

Given the quality of past reporting on bike-on-ped crashes, many reporters will undoubtedly try to imply some sort of connection between the number of pedestrian injuries and the city’s bike policy. But the stats show no such link. Pedestrian injuries caused by cyclists are declining even as the popularity of cycling continues to rise. In 2007 and 2008, Tuckel and Milczarski counted 1,097 and 1,112 pedestrian injuries caused by crashes with bikes. The following two years, those numbers dropped to 985 and then 927. With only four years of data, it’s too early to tell whether a trend is at work, but there’s no evidence that the city’s effort to build better bike infrastructure has led to an increase in bike-caused injuries. (There is solid evidence that bike lanes reduce the incidence of motor vehicle crashes that kill pedestrians: The New York City Department of Transportation has found that controlling for other factors, bike lanes made streets 40 percent less deadly for people on foot.)

 

“No death or serious injury is acceptable on our streets,” said Transportation Alternatives spokesperson Michael Murphy in response to the new data. “There is strong evidence that bike behavior is improving as bicycling is becoming more mainstream. According to the study, bike on pedestrian injuries declined 15% from 2007 to 2010. During this same four year period, cycling in New York City increased over 50 percent.”

Added Murphy, “Let’s also remember to put this in context. Motor vehicles are responsible for over 70,000 injuries every year in New York City, and hundreds of annual deaths. We can ignore that number and bash bikes, or we can get serious about safety and work to stop all traffic casualties.”

Nancy Gruskin, who initiated the study as part of her efforts to promote attentive cycling in the wake of her husband’s death in a collision with a cyclist, said the pedestrian injury stats should inform the city’s bike-share plans. “Considering the alarming statistics in the Hunter study, I am concerned that safety precautions are not front and center as the Bike Sharing program is unveiled,” she said in a press release accompanying the report. “Putting 10,000 more bikes on city streets without an enforceable plan for safety could be cause for concern. But if a good safety plan is put in place, bike sharing could be a great addition to New York City.” (Meanwhile, study co-author Milczarski told Transportation Nation’s Andrea Bernstein that he supports the city’s planned bike-share program.)

Research shows that pedestrians are safer in places with greater numbers of cyclists on the street, however. A study released early this year by civil engineering professors Wesley Marshall and Norman Garrick, for instance, highlighted these indirect pedestrian safety effects. They found that of 24 California cities, those with high cycling rates had lower risk of fatal or severe traffic crashes for all road users. In other words, cities with more people on bikes are safer for pedestrians. Marshall and Garrick don’t presume to have a definitive answer about what causes this effect, but they offer these potential explanations in their conclusion:

The fact that this pattern is consistent for all classes of road users strongly suggests crashes in these high-biking cities are at lower speeds. Such differences seem to be partly due to street network design but also due to other design elements that may well attract larger numbers of bicyclists. While the bicycle infrastructure itself might help in traffic calming, it may be that the actual presence of a large numbers of bicyclists can change the dynamics of the street enough to lower vehicle speeds.

By MIKE BAKER , 09.21.11, 09:24 AM EDT

OLYMPIA, Wash. —

A major overhaul of the workers’ compensation system in Washington is already helping keep costs down for businesses, state officials said Tuesday while disclosing a major rate increase isn’t needed to keep finances stable.

The Department of Labor & Industries said it’s proposing an average rate hike of 2.5 percent for 2012. The agency could have been pushing for a double-digit increase this year if it wasn’t for changes made in the Legislature.

Officials had been considering an increase of up to 8 percent as recently as this week to restore depleted reserves but went with a lower number amid concerns from businesses.

“We recognize the impact of painfully slow economic growth, and this proposal balances that with the needs of the workers’ comp system,” department Director Judy Schurke said.

The agency plans to work with business and labor leaders on a plan to rebuild fund reserves in the future. Public hearings will be held on the rate proposal in October before a final decision in December.

Amid concerns about the financial stability of the system, businesses worked with lawmakers this year on a variety of changes, with the biggest allowing the state to offer limited settlements to workers that would lower payout costs over the long term. Officials believe the changes will save $1.1 billion in potential spending over four years.

Jerry VanderWood, a spokesman for the The Associated General Contractors of Washington, said the group was pleased with the lower rate proposal, but he added that keeping rates at current levels was the preference.

“It’s all about the timing,” VanderWood said. “The rest of the economy may be in a recession, but the construction industry is in a depression.”

Labor groups aggressively fought against the settlements plan that lawmakers adopted, arguing the new rules will lead to workers accepting less than what they are entitled to receive. The groups also have also campaigned to raise the rates to build up the system’s reserves.

 

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.