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California residents working for companies like Lyft and Uber would get the rights of employees entitled to a minimum wage and workers compensation under a law the state Assembly passed on Wednesday. The sweeping bill, which now goes to the Senate, carries new standards defining whether workers are employees or independent contractors, upending how workers are treated in industries from trucking to the burgeoning gig economy. Under those standards, for example, workers could only be classified as independent contractors if they are free from the control or direction of an employer and they do work outside a company’s usual course...

GOP spokeswoman Jessica Proud told the outlet that the incident represented “hypocrisy at its finest.” “The so-called champion of workers, when given her own responsibility, is not following the law. It’s unbelievable,” Proud said. Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign was fined $1,500 by New York for failing to provide workers’ compensation coverage for a month in early 2018. The 29-year-old Democratic Socialist's campaign “did not have the required workers’ compensation coverage from March 31, 2018, to April 30, 2018, and was issued a final penalty of $1,500, which was paid,” Melissa Stewart, director of public information at the state’s Workers...

After Baltimore descended into rioting in April, police officers and other city staffers have filed 169 workers compensation claims with city government, reporting various injuries, a budget official said Tuesday.. As a result, the city expects to pay out $1.7 million, according to Bob Cenname, Baltimore’s deputy budget director. The costs are among an estimated $20 million the rioting is expected to cost taxpayers. Officials are temporarily covering the costs with money from the city’s rainy day fund while seeking reimbursement for up to 75 percent from Federal Emergency Management Agency....

A federal grand jury on Friday charged a California state senator with more felonies in addition to the eight counts he already faced in a sweeping organized crime and public corruption case centered in San Francisco’s Chinatown. […] Yee pleaded not guilty to the original eight charges. He will have to enter a plea Wednesday to the charges in the new indictment. The new accusations allege that San Francisco Democrat offered to help pass legislation making it harder for professional football players to obtain workers compensation in California, in exchange for campaign contributions from an unidentified NFL owner. The new...

<p>Torrance Mayor Frank Scotto blames the state of California for Toyota Motor's decision to relocate its North American headquarters from the city to Plano, Texas.</p> <p>"The state of California lost Toyota," Scotto said on "Power Lunch" Tuesday.</p> <p>He pointed to a number of issues in the Golden State that negatively affect companies' bottom line: tax structure, workers' compensation and liability insurance.</p>

An Australian woman who was injured in 2007 while having sex during a business trip has been awarded worker’s compensation. The woman, a human resources employee in a government agency, was having sex with a male friend in her motel room when a lighting fixture fell off the wall and and injured her nose and mouth ... The woman sued for compensation, saying that since her employer reserved and paid for the room, the injury happened “during the course of her employment.”

A controversy in the California workers’ compensation market over a revised provider contract threatens to erupt into an all-out legal brawl as doctors for injured workers and applicants’ attorneys take aim at the state’s largest carrier.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Emily Hegner competed in a seven-mile Muir Woods run in April 208 that included a chunk of the grueling Dipsea trail. She did all right, finishing 12th out of 23 women in her age group. But three months earlier, according to the state Department of Insurance, Hegner was classified as disabled and was collecting workers' compensation benefits because of injuries she reported suffering in a slip-and-fall accident as a San Francisco hospital worker. And nearly five months after the race, the department said, she told an orthopedic surgeon she was in pain most of the time, couldn't...

LANSING -- They weren't your average protesters Thursday at the state Capitol. Some were illegal immigrants, rallying for the state to grant them rights to workers' compensation. "We're only one of two states in the nation that does not allow workers that are undocumented to compensate when they are injured on the job," said state Rep. Rashida Tlaib from Detroit. She introduced a bill Thursday in the House that would change that -- extend Michigan's workers' compensation rights to illegal immigrants. Tlaib says many of the estimated 100,000 illegals in Michigan are workers. And while most of them pay into...

...The justices voted 6 to 1 in favor of the decision. Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. dissented, stating in his opinion that the law refers only to minors when it says that workers "whether lawfully or unlawfully employed" are covered by workers' compensation benefits. Several states across the country have issued similar rulings in favor of workers, said Lagos' attorney, Del. Luiz S. Simmons, a Montgomery County Democrat. The attorney for Design Kitchen and Baths could not be reached for comment. Lagos, who is from Argentina, injured his left hand cutting wood on the job on Aug. 20, 2001. The...

WASHINGTON - The mounting deaths and injuries to civilian contractors in Iraq could cost the federal government millions of dollars for hundreds of workers' compensation claims. Federal law requires all U.S. government contractors and subcontractors to obtain workers' compensation insurance for civilian employees who work overseas. If an injury or death claim is related to a "war-risk hazard," the War Hazards Compensation Act provides for government reimbursement to insurance carriers. Nearly half the 771 injury claims filed by U.S. contractors so far this year occurred in Iraq — 345. Of the 66 deaths reported as of last week, all but...

His thick, gnarled fingers and muscular arms give him away. Mexico native David Sanchez, 46, is a man accustomed to tough, physical labor. The West Michigan resident is also an undocumented worker -- who finds himself at the center of a closely watched legal fight over a claim for workers' compensation. At stake is a fundamental question: Are those who illegally cross our borders entitled to the same job benefits as American citizens? "I'm doing everything the citizen is supposed to do. I am contributing to society," Sanchez says in Spanish. "Why shouldn't I have rights like the other people?"...

<p>HUNTINGTON -- Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob Capehart Wednesday outlined a plan for West Virginia’s workers’ compensation program that would give workers incentives to return to private payrolls.</p> <p>Capehart, meeting with The Herald-Dispatch editorial board, said his plan would focus on what happens to workers after they are placed on the workers' compensation role. Injured workers would be required to participate in physical rehabilitation and vocational retraining, so that they would eventually return to work in some capacity.</p>

The address is set for 5 p.m. today in the Assembly chamber. While Schwarzenegger discusses general issues today, he will leave many of the difficult details of how he intends to close a $14-billion deficit for Friday, when he is scheduled to release his 2004-05 budget. Schwarzenegger's office consulted hundreds of people in preparing the speech and worked through multiple drafts, according to people who took part. In the address, the governor will reiterate his call for more bipartisanship in Sacramento's political culture. But the heart of the speech will be the importance of boosting the economy — a goal...

Life-death Struggle Not Over for Georgia Policeman By Robert Roerich, M.D. October 14, 2001 began as an ordinary shift for Floyd County Police Officer Pat Sleffel, responding to a domestic disturbance call that night. The suspect had fled into the woods and hid after severely beating his wife. Sleffel waited patiently then spotted the man running away in the dark field. With no backup for thirty minutes, he wrestled the man to the ground and felt a strong, sharp pain in his chest and left arm. His paramedic training told him he was having a heart attack and then suddenly...

<p>After his San Diego “Ask Arnold” event, I asked Schwarzenegger exactly what was missing from the workers compensation overhaul the Legislature passed this week. In other words, if he were governor, what would he have demanded that lawmakers did not produce? He declined to answer, falling back again on his general talking points and insisting that the package adopted by lawmakers was not sufficient, but refusing to say why it was not sufficient.</p>

Calif. Tackles Workers Comp System By Michael Kahn SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Even Costco can't afford California anymore. Costco Wholesale Corp. (Nasdaq:COST - news), the largest wholesale club operator in the United States, traces its bargain-hunting corporate beginnings in part to a high-volume, steep-discount warehouse opened in San Diego more than 25 years ago. But now, Costco says it could cut jobs in the state where it got its start because of California's skyrocketing worker's compensation costs. The total bill for workers compensation in California has soared to an estimated $29 billion in 2003 from $9 billion in 1995, prompting...

LAW OF THE LAND Illegals entitled to workers' compensation Arizona court rules business liable for employee's eye injury Posted: August 2, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com A three-judge panel of the Arizona Court of Appeals has ruled a transmission shop in Phoenix is liable to pay the workers' compensation of an illegal alien employee who injured his eye on the job. In a 3-0 decision, the panel rejected arguments by Lee Myles Transmission that it wasn't liable to pay the claims of Fermin Torres because he is not a U.S. citizen, the Arizona Capitol Times reported this week....

SACRAMENTO, June 19 — Across the country, the cost of workers' compensation insurance is soaring at the highest rate in nearly a decade, adding yet another heavy burden on businesses and the struggling national economy. The governors of Florida, West Virginia and Washington have called special sessions of their Legislatures this year to find ways to contain costs, and elsewhere, thousands of bills on workers' compensation have been introduced. Advertisement The system covers 127 million workers nationally but is regulated state by state, with no federal oversight. Unlike with Medicare and Medicaid, Congress has no role in the regulation of...

Redskins Try End Run to Save Millions Workers' Compensation Wouldn't Apply to Team By Michael D. Shear Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 18, 2003; Page A01 RICHMOND, Jan. 17 -- Legislation filed in Virginia today on behalf of the Washington Redskins ownership would virtually exempt the team from paying millions of dollars to its players for injuries suffered on the field. Senior Democrats and Republicans in the General Assembly have lined up behind the measure, introduced just before today's deadline for new legislation. The bill was introduced in the House and Senate a week after the Virginia Supreme Court...