Focus on Employees: Worker's Song

Focus on Employees: He Fades Away

Focus on Employees: Chemical Workers' Song

Focus on Employees: A Song About Noise

World's Hottest Workplace Safety Song

Workplace safety is cool!

Law Music Video: Chemical Workers' Song

Industrial workers may be at risk for serious health injuries due to long term exposure to dangerous chemicals.  The workers know this inherently, yet need to make a living. What is the social response through law?

Pick your favorite version:



A Capella lads from UConn:




















The dance version:

Law Music Video: Chemical Worker's Song

This week is Employment Law including Worker's Compensation.  Choose your favorite version, below:













Singing Pirates:

He Fades Away: Law's Remedy Too Little, Too Late

I know that I have posted this song before, but the video has been removed from YouTube, so I am re-upping, with options in case it happens again.

He Fades Away was written by Alistair Hulett and illuminates the position of a miners' wife as she watches her husband slowly die of mesothelioma. This was the fate of many who worked at the Wittenoom Blue Asbestos mine in Western Australia.

"There's  a man in my bed, they never told him,
The cost of bringing home his weekly pay.
When the courts decide how much they owe him,
How will he spend his money when he lies in bed and coughs his life away?"

To skip the introductions, start the video at 1:55:











Start this video at 0:35; end at 5:01:

Casualties of the Gridiron

There's been  a growing awareness of the long term physical effects of playing football, especially at the highest levels in college and the pros. Long time player Brett Favre has recently disclosed his creeping memory loss and opined that had he a son, Favre would "be leery" of letting him play football.

GC magazine is running a series entitled "Casualties of the Gridiron." The video below features former NFL quarterback Ray Lucas.  Lucas suffered ruptured discs and nerve damage as a player and lives in pain. He delayed necessary back surgery for years because he had no health insurance after he retired. he sunk into despair before finally being able to turn things around with help.



The question that first comes to mind for me is, "Why isn't this covered by workers' compensation?"  These pro athletes may be paid millions, but they are still employees covered by state workers' comp laws as far as I know.  Just last month, California made headlines by passing legislation limiting worker's comp claims by pro athletes.  By implication, before that legislation, there were no limitations.  ESPN has even referred to workers comp as a "threat" to the NFL.This week, five former members of the Kansas City Chiefs sued the team over head injuries suffered over the course of their careers. According to their lawyer, the lawsuit is not barred by worker's comp laws because of an exception for injuries incurred over an extended period of time.

Former player, Deion Sanders, who famously criticized players filing suit over not being warned about the effect of concussions, has filed a comp claim for his football injuries.

So, what gives? Does anyone know why Ray Lucas couldn't get the surgery he needed under worker's comp laws?

Law Music Video: The Chemical Worker's Song by Great Big Sea

This week the law music video is The Chemical Worker's Song by Great Big Sea.  

What is the nature of "industry" and what role should law play in its regulation of worker safety, consumer safety, financial dealings, etc.?

The Working-Person and the Law

I have previously posted these videos below in different contexts.  But in honor of Labor Day, I thought they could help in contemplation of the relationship between the working-person and the law.

Law Music Video - He Fades Away

This week's installment in the law music video series is He Fades Away by Kate Fagan or Alistair Hulett.
He Fades Away was written by the late Scottish singer/songwriter Alistair Hulett. It is written from the perspective of a miner's wife as she watches him slowly die from this horrible disease. The futility of the legal system's role is evident.

What is the role of law in society?
Law  is reactive, not proactive.  Can "justice" ever be achieved? 
In John Grisham's "The Rainmaker," young attorney Rudy Baylor shares his disgust over the inability of the legal system to save his client who is slowly dying of cancer. Why  can't the system act earlier, faster, more efficiently to stop wrongdoing before it becomes fatal?
If law is not the answer, what is?

City Tells Police Office CPR Injury Not Job Related

The Hartford Courant reports (1/19/12) what can only be characterized as a bizarre legal opinion from the New Britain, Connecticut city attorney.  My apologies to the Courant for quoting so extensively from the article, but unfortunately, the Courant does not allow access to its archive for long. According to the article:

On Nov. 11, [New Britain police officer Frank] Barbagiovanni was dispatched to a house where a 10-year-boy had stopped breathing. As soon as he got out of his patrol car, the mother ran to him with the unconscious boy, and Barbagiovanni began CPR until paramedics arrived and took over. The boy later died at the Hospital of Central Connecticut.

Because the boy vomited on the officer's face and in his open mouth during CPR, supervisors directed Barbagiovanni to file a report documenting that he had potentially been exposed to communicable diseases.

City attorneys later notified him that the incident was not "causally related to a work-related condition" – and that they would contest workers compensation if he applied for it.

Officer Barbagiovanni, understandably upset, commented, "I thought the city would want me to try and save a life, they trained me in the skills to do so... The city on one hand cannot demand and acknowledge we expose ourselves to threats of injury and then state that we do not have to."

The city attorney's inexplicable letter and opinion is bad enough, but a spokesman for the New Britain mayor managed to compound the embarrassment.  In a follow up story (1/20/12) reporting that the mayor called Barbagiovanni to his office to apologize to him, the Courant reports:

The section of the city's attorney's letter was merely "boilerplate," language common in any worker's compensation correspondence, said Phil Sherwood, an aide to [the mayor].

"Any reasonable person would understand that the attorney wasn't saying CPR isn't part of a police officer's duties," Sherwood said, who said the mayor applauds Barbagiovanni's work at the emergency call.

So, if you read the two articles together, it is clear that the policy of the City of New Britain is to deny and challenge ALL workers' compensation claims, regardless of reason, justice, the law and, of course, the facts that should have been understood by "any reasonable person." Isn't this a plot line right out of a Grisham novel (The Rainmaker)?

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Workplace Safety: "Where, Oh Where Did My Hearing Go?"

Here is some plain talk (and singing) from a plain talking guy about the importance of following workplace saftey regulations.

A Song About Asbestosis - "He Fades Away"

He Fades Away was written by the late Scottish singer/songwriter Alistair Hulett. It is written from the perspective of a miner's wife as she watches him slowly die from this horrible disease. The futility of the legal system's role is evident.