Danielle didn’t know if she could do it any longer. After twenty years at her job, she was worn out. The swelling of her joints was as usual painful and disfiguring. The ice packs and elevation of her feet and legs that she did every night was no longer doing any good. And now, her joints were stiffening, clicking, and even locking, so that at times, she couldn’t really bend them at all. Several of her co-workers had already left their jobs with the same conditions. Some had sought worker’s comp, while others had not. To Danielle’s knowledge, none had received it. The only thing Danielle knew was that she couldn’t keep doing the job unless something changed, and fast.
Health
Health is basic to job success. You can’t work if you don’t have the physical and mental health for the job. And you shouldn’t work the job if the job itself is destroying your physical or mental health. Nearly every worker at one time or another has a health concern affecting work, whether caused by work or not. Most of us miss at least a day or two of work for common colds or influenza. Many of us struggle through work with periodic days off due to chronic conditions like migraine headaches, pinched nerves, or bad backs. And some of us must take more-extended breaks for hospitalization, treatment, and recovery for more-serious conditions like broken bones, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or failing organs. Health, good or bad, is a huge factor in job failure or success. The race generally goes to the strong and fast, not the frail and feeble. Even if you’re not personally into health routines, give due attention to your health for its impact on your job success.
Habits
Your health habits need to lay a solid foundation for your ability to continually meet your job’s physical and mental demands. If you’re not exercising, eating nutritious food, managing your weight and blood pressure, and avoiding harmful indulgences, then you’re probably on your way to job disability and interruptions. Poor health habits will catch up with you, sooner or later. They often first do so in the workplace. In your twenties, you learn that you need regular sleep. In your thirties, you learn that you can’t tolerate so much partying. In your forties, you learn that your health takes actual thought, discipline, and work. In your fifties, you learn that what you didn’t do for your health when you were younger eventually catches up with you. In your sixties, you pay for every youthful indulgence. By your seventies, you probably no longer have the energy and strength for substantial stretches of hard work. You are fortunate to even be living into your eighties. Take your health seriously. If you don’t, you may pay for it in job disability and loss. Start exercising, get on a diet, and have periodic medical checkups. Don’t ignore your good health. Your job success depends on it.
Rights
You might think that job disability is job disability, no matter the nature of your impairment or the cause for your inability to work. Yet the nature of your job disability and its cause can each make big differences to your job interests and rights. Your employer may have certain obligations to provide a safer workplace, accommodate your disability, provide you with medical leave, compensate you for a work-related injury, or provide you with disability benefits, depending on the circumstances, nature, and extent of your disability. It can matter a lot, for instance, whether work was the cause of your disability or not. If you are sick, injured, or disabled, don’t be surprised at your employer’s interest in the nature, extent, and cause of your disability. Your employer may need to know, and you may need to notify your employer and provide your employer with appropriate information, for you to preserve and exercise your legal rights. The following paragraphs address your primary workplace rights related to your health.
Safety
Your workplace should not be an unreasonably dangerous or unhealthy place to be. Work diplomatically with your employer to address your safety concerns. Request and wear or use appropriate safety clothing and protective gear and equipment. Follow safety rules and adopt safe practices. Federal and state occupational safety and health acts, known as OSHA laws and regulations, require employers to maintain workplaces free from serious recognized hazards. Those hazards can include slips, trips, falls, dropped items from heights, lifting injuries, and even repetitive-motion injuries. OSHA laws and regulations supplement that general duty with other specific standards for general industry, construction, maritime, agriculture, and other fields. Your employer should be respecting those general and specific obligations. Yet OSHA also protects whistleblowers and prohibits employers from retaliating against them. If you have a concern over workplace safety that your employer refuses to address and that you genuinely believe may be an OSHA violation, don’t hesitate to report it to OSHA for investigation. State whistleblower protection acts can even protect you against employer retaliation for a threat to report a law violation to agency officials. Don’t sacrifice your safety or the safety of co-workers just to get a job done. Doing so can cost you and others in the long run. Get qualified attorney representation if your employer retaliates against you over a workplace safety dispute.
Exposure
Workplace exposures can also present significant health hazards. Asbestos, lead, silica, mercury, benzene, radiation, and other chemicals, substances, and materials can poison or otherwise harm workers through inhalation, contact absorption, or other exposure. The same OSHA laws that address workplace safety also address workplace exposures, either as to specific materials or through general clauses, or both. Those laws require your employer to maintain material safety data sheets (MSDS) in the workplace and at work sites, alerting workers to exposure hazards. If you are working around potentially hazardous materials, ask your employer to see the notebook or have online access to the safety data sheets. Review those sheets for hazards and ways to avoid hazards, and alert your employer to your need for protective gear or altered practices to avoid exposure. Don’t become another unfortunate statistic among the several major workplace exposure epidemics occurring in recent decades. Safeguard your health.
Accommodations
If you have a disability, whether caused by your work or not, then you may have the protection of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requiring your employer to provide you with reasonable workplace accommodations. A physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities is generally a qualifying ADA disability. Qualifying disabilities can include vision or hearing impairment, impaired mobility such as difficulty walking, standing, or lifting, and cognitive impairments like depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. The reasonableness of the accommodations you request and require depends on factors like cost, feasibility, and availability. Common accommodations include ramps, lifts, lifting devices, and modified computer screens. Accommodations can also include modified work schedules and modified policies to allow a disabled worker to take more-frequent breaks or leaves. Job restructuring may also be available. Don’t let your disability interfere with your job success. Your employer has an obligation to engage you and your occupational therapist or other healthcare providers in an interactive process to negotiate your disability’s reasonable accommodation. Get qualified attorney representation if your employer refuses to provide you with reasonable disability accommodations.
Comp
If a workplace injury caused your disability, your employer may owe you worker’s disability compensation benefits. State worker’s disability compensation acts, and similar federal schemes in some industries, guarantee work-loss benefits for lost wages and reimbursement of reasonable medical expenses for workplace injury. Worker’s comp benefits are generally available without regard to fault. You may have carelessly caused your own injury, or your injury may have been your employer’s fault or no one’s fault, and you’ll still receive comp benefits if otherwise qualified. Work-loss benefits are typically a substantial percentage, between 60% to 80%, of your regular pay. To qualify for benefits, your disability must generally arise out of a sudden injury from work, while at work. But comp laws and their interpretations vary from state to state. Promptly report your workplace injury and disability to your employer so that your employer can coordinate your worker’s compensation claim. Retain qualified attorney representation if your employer disputes paying comp benefits. Comp acts prohibit your employer from retaliating against you for exercising your worker’s compensation rights.
Leave
Poor health may require you to take periodic medical leaves from your job. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) protects employees who must take up to twelve weeks of qualifying medical leave or care for close family members having qualifying illness or injury. A qualifying medical leave is generally a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform their job’s essential functions, although childbirth, child adoption, and other events and conditions can also qualify. The FMLA does not require employers to pay employees during their medical leave. The FMLA only requires employers to permit the leave and then to reinstate the employee on return within the allowed twelve weeks. Other laws, such as state Earned Sick Time Acts, or contract rights, may require employers to pay for some medical leave. Notify your employer promptly, as soon as you learn of your need for a medical leave. Be prepared to provide the documentation and submit to any examination that your employer requests and the FMLA requires. And get qualified attorney representation if you are unable to resolve a medical-leave dispute with your employer.
Disability
If you do find yourself disabled from work, you may have short-term or long-term disability insurance covering your work disability. Some employers provide or offer disability insurance as an employment benefit. You can also purchase disability insurance on the private market outside of your employment-benefits package. Disability insurance can be expensive and may not be worth its cost unless you are the sole provider for others who cannot provide for themselves. Short-term disability coverage through employment may be more cost-effective and wise than long-term disability coverage, given that permanent work disability may qualify you for Social Security disability benefits. If you find yourself disabled from work, check your employee benefits to confirm whether you have disability insurance coverage. Expect to apply for Social Security disability benefits if you suffer a permanent disability. Retain qualified attorney representation if you fail to qualify, to ensure that you gain your full rights.
Representation
You’ve seen above that you have substantial workplace rights relating to your safety, health, and disability. The laws and regulations enforcing those rights can be complex. When your employer or its insurers dispute your workplace rights related to your health and disability, they often have the representation of claims managers with substantial skill and experience to address and resolve claims favorably for the employer. Don’t go into a workplace dispute over your safety, disability accommodation, medical leave, or workplace injury at a disadvantage. Attorneys representing employees on these matters often do so on contingency fees or even under laws that provide for the other side’s fee reimbursement. You may have a highly qualified attorney available to you at no out-of-pocket cost. Contact your state or local bar association and do your research online and among knowledgeable friends and acquaintances, to identify and consult one of those highly qualified attorneys. They’ll tell you whether and how they can help, and at what cost.
Reflection
Rate your health on a scale of one to ten, considering not only your physical fitness but also your mental state and overall vitality. Even if your current health is fine, as good as you could want it, what could you do to improve your health habits so that your ability to continue to work at your best continues well into the future? List any unsafe conditions or toxic exposures at your workplace about which you have concerns, and make a plan to address them with your employer. Would you be able to do a better job if your employer reasonably accommodated your disabilities? Review your employment benefits package for disability insurance options. Have you selected the option that best fits your disability, dependent, and income risks?
Key Points
Your good physical and mental health is crucial to your job success.
Develop and maintain good exercise, nutrition, and other health habits.
Know your legal rights in the workplace relative to your health.
Your employer must maintain a safe workplace free from hazards.
Your employer must also avoid exposing you to harmful materials.
Your employer must reasonably accommodate qualifying disability.
Worker’s comp benefits cover loss and expense from workplace injury.
You have reinstatement rights for up to twelve weeks of medical leave.
Disability insurance and Social Security disability may be available.
Get attorney representation in disputes over workplace rights.