The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Worker's Compensation" ...
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Des Moines Register Reader's Watchdog
The Des Moines Register Reader's Watchdog column that takes on issues faced by individual Iowans who are at wits’ end and can't get answers from public officials, businesses and the justice system. Watchdog reporter Lee Rood's job is to give voice to readers who present important issues, to investigate all sides of those issues and to seek solutions that eluded others. This is a unique effort that both engages readers and values traditional watchdog reporting. At a time when journalists are seeking to remain relevant, build credibility and engage readers, she has launched this initiative that focuses not on the stories that she thinks are important, but on issues that are critical to our readers. In the past year, she wrote more than 60 columns, digging into watchdog issue brought to her by Iowans. Her work has put a new spotlight on wrongs that needed righting. Her work has led state lawmakers to propose legislation that requires Iowans to call 911 if they are present at the scene of an overdose. She has prodded the state attorney general's office to develop a plan to enforce laws that require companies to have worker's compensation insurance. She has fought through red tape for readers who didn't have someone in their corner to do so. Lee Rood's bold move to launch a new form of watchdog journalism for the Des Moines Register has made Iowans' lives better. Online, this body of work lives at DesMoinesRegister.com/ReadersWatchdog.
Tags: Public officials; businesses; justice system
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Wage Theft In the Fields
American farmworkers have often experienced egregious abuses, but nothing is more pervasive, nor harder to ferret out, than the wage theft that results from a practice called farm-labor contracting. Found in the fields of every handpicked crop in the country, farm-labor contractors not only provide growers with crews, but also handle wages and manage everything from verifying immigration status to providing workers' compensation. The problem is, the contractors systematically underpay the workers. “Farm labor contractors,” says writer Tracie McMillan, “give American produce growers what companies like China's Foxconn offer to Apple: a way to outsource a costly and complicated part of the business, often saving money in the process and creating a firewall between the brand and the working conditions under which its products are made.” And yet McMillan — a fellow with both the Knight-Wallace program at University of Michigan, and the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University — found that enforcement is rare: In 2008, inspectors visited only 1,499 of the more than 2 million farms nationwide; in 2011, California inspectors found just seven minimum wage violations on the state’s 86,000 farms. Fines are minimal: “It's cheaper to violate the law than to follow the law,” says one farmworker advocate. And wage theft is tedious to prove, requiring inspectors to interview workers, analyze time cards, and collect payroll records. That's why workers and their advocates in California are counting on a lawsuit brought earlier this year on behalf of two farmworkers against the contractors who hired them—as well as the growers who outsourced the work. The suit alleges that the contractors routinely undercounted the hours worked, failed to pay minimum wage or overtime, failed to provide safe or sanitary working conditions, and housed the workers in unsafe and unsanitary living quarters. The “collective action” suit—open to anyone who can prove he or she experienced the same treatment—may cover thousands of workers and deliver awards substantial enough to deter other employers from the same practices.
Tags: Labor; farms; working conditions; wage
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U.S. Fails to Proect Workers in Anarctica
Anartica is a land that conjures images of brave explorers and dedicated scientists striving amid stark beauty. But an in-depth investigation reveals that is also a place where workplace safety severely lags, and injured workers face unforeseen obstacles to get compensation.
Tags: Worker's Compensation; Anartica; Obstacles; Workplace Safety
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Scandal in Illinois Workers' Compensation System
More than 230 guards at the Menard Correctional Center, a maximum security Illinois prison, claimed to have acquired carpal tunnel syndrome of the wrist by turning keys or operating cell locking mechanisms. These claims resulted in in taxpayer-funded partial disability payments totaling more than $10 million paid to guards who returned to work full-time operating the same locks.
Tags: Menard Correctional Center; prison; carpal tunnel syndrome
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Prison Workers Compensation Investigation
The reporters find that hundreds of guards at a Illinois maximum security prison were receiving large taxpayer-funded injury awards for carpal tunnel syndrome they claimed came from unlocking cell doors. The state had spent $30.6 million on these settlements over three years. As a result of the investigation, the Illinois Department of Insurance launched a civil and criminal investigation.
Tags: injury awards; state prisons; settlements; Menard Correctional Center; workers compensation
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Dysfunctional government
This series describes a state government employee having jobs where he has zero tasks and often his position is referred to as “no-show jobs”. This worker has gone a number of years without doing any work, even after a number of requests for duties and tasks. Furthermore, the series looks at the inflated compensation for state officials.
Tags: State Insurance Fund; state government; Randall Hinton; native american
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Disposable Army
In today's American war zones, there are more civilian contractors on the ground than combat troops. However, when a contractor is injured or killed, they must face an insurance system that delivers sub-standard care. Failure to enforce companies to purchase mandated worker's compensation insurance for employees and a lack of awareness among hires has resulted in severs gaps of coverage for individuals working in overseas war zones.
Tags: insurance; workers; war zones; overseas; contractors; civilian; private; profits; employees; troops; care; health; coverage;
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A World of Hurt
The New York State workers compensation system was criticized, but seldom examined. This series exposes the costs of the system failing it most basic mission: “to resolve jobsite injuries without further damaging workers or hurting their employers.” Often workers had to wait a number of months to have their cases heard, hearings were short, workers were fired after being injured and claimant lawyers often didn’t think of the long-term results.
Tags: Workers; Workers compensation; Costs; Jobs; Jobsite injuries; Damage; Hurt; Injured workers; Bosses; Legal; Medical treatment; Replacement wages; Wages; Compensation system
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SCIF Sale: The Big Lie
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to sell $1 billion in assets of the State Compensation Insurance Fund in an effort to close California's enormous budget gap. Such a sale would greatly negatively effect California's workers' comp market. Additionally the sale of the assets are not returned to the policy holders and instead included in the general state budget.
Tags: California; Workers comp; insurance; budget; Arnold Schwarzenegger; policy holders; 1 billion; compensation; fund; proposal; department of finance;
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Blackwater Blood Money & Other Scandals
ABCNews.com's "The Blotter" has tracked the operations of one of the most controversial private security companies operating in Iraq, Blackwater. ABC news focused on the investigation following a deadly shooting in Baghdad that left 17 civilians dead. Reporters in the U.S. and in Baghdad followed the investigation by developing relationships with the victims of the shooting and their families, obtaining exclusive documents and developing knowledgeable sources inside the State Department. The team began their investigation by looking behind-the-scenes at Blackwater's effort in Iraq to make compensation settlements with the survivors and victims' families and capped with reporting that one of the Blackwater guards involved in t he shooting signed a secret plea deal to testify against his five indicted co-workers. In the course or reporting, ABC news also uncovered numerous other unreported controversies surrounding Blackwater's operations. Despite being accused of improper use of force, arms trafficking and overbilling, the State Department renewed Blackwater's $1.2 billion contract earlier this year.
Tags: Iraq War; Blackwater; contracting; arms trafficking; improper use of force; U.S. State Department