fumes made them sick

njjel

We had our heater serviced and the fumes from the spray paint spread throughout the building and while it was not pleasant, it did bother a few of the workers who have upper respiratory problems. One of the workers had an asthma attack from it and went home and another said it bothered her allergies and she also left. Under the law, are we obligated to pay her for the 4 hours she missed or can we tell her to use her sick time? I look at this as it is worker's comp however both workers are back to work today. So if I were treating this like worker's comp I would not pay them and neither would w.c., but they could be paid from their sick bank if they have time. Your thoughts?

TN HR

My suggestion is to document it for what it is, WC. Follow your policy and State's law regarding lost wages. If your policy allows an ee to substitute PTO during the elimination period then allow them to do so.

Gene

njjel

Is that what your company would do? Or since it was only 4 hours would they just pay them outright?

HRinFL

I agree with Gene. It doesn't matter that the ees were only out for four hours. It appears to me that you had two ees that were unable to work due to health reasons that arose from being at work. I would classify it as W/C, and sinmce they went home, it is a claim that has lost time. Since W/C does not cover the first seven days, you need to follow your policy or laws governing your state to properly credit these ees for the time missed.

BTW, depending on your business, you may be required to record this on the OSHA log as well, since they lost time.

pork1

NJJEL: Since it is the companies' responsibility to maintain a safe and healthy environment under the "General Duty Clause" of OSHA, we would treat these workers as a W/C case. They would be on the clock, if one could have otherwised assumed to be at work during this period of time. We would pay them for this lost income due to an unhealthy situation for these individuals.

We pay our employees from the time of the incident/event until the physician takes them out of the work force. We use a 5 work day measurement before W/C will kick in, after the physician takes a worker out of the work force. Until we can provide a healthy working environment, we are responsible for lost earning power.

By removing the unhealthy environment issue overnight the employee would return to a normal days work on the clock. You could also engineer the issue away by temporary work location for these individuals. The individuals effected by the smell could be assigned to work the yard beautification program rather than sitting at home in a "couch potato" roll at company expense. If they are not interested in working in some other opportunity then "boom" they are off the clock or on PTO, at their choice.

Be proactive to take care of the employee and you will not likely get a "telephone complaint OSHA audit"!

PORK

njjel

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 04-01-05 AT 10:01AM (CST)[/font][br][br]Pork do i understand correctly that your company would pay for up to five days if the ee could not return before w.c. payments kicked in?

Edit - and would they pay for the 5 days regardless of whether the incident was caused by fumes or a fall?

Whatever

Njjel-it shouldn't matter what was the cause of wc incident. Your policy should treat all incidences the same.

pork1

NJJEL: Yes, up to 5 days to these employees if the company were not able to restore the environment to a satisfactory state in these five days. However, be real, I would have to sit on my "butt" and do nothing to clear the air for that to happen. The individual would be assigned to some productive work area or site outside of the bad fumes until the "bad air" is restored to "good air". The consistent application of our responsibility is what you have to stand on. normally, two hours is about the max number of hours between accident/injury and treatment or resolution of the injury/illness.

Edited words are also incorporated in these words.

Pork

Hunter1

I don't know about your state, but in WI, it's not a lost time case unless a qualified medical practitioner says it's necessary for the employee to take time off from work. An employee cannot just decide that he/she is hurt and go home for the next three weeks and collect work comp. If the employee just decides to take some time off, it's on their dime so to speak. Substitute paid time if you want.

crawfod

This may be too late to help, but I would document the incident but not enter it on the OSHA Log--no medical attention was given, and lost time on the day of the incident is not OSHA recordable. Your WC insurance carrier really has no obligations since there are no bills and no pay is owed by them.

Regarding pay, my initial reaction was who told them they could go home and what was said about paying them. I'm with Hunter1 in that normally work-related injuries/illnesses result in medical care and, if these two had sought medical care, a doctor could have said take the rest of the day off. In that case you would have followed your policy about pay for the rest of the shift. (We pay for lost time on the day of the incident.) But these two people didn't follow the normal route, and, frankly, since they returned the next day with no problems, have saved you WC expenses. Perhaps a half hour of outside air might have gotten them through the shift, but it's over now. Pay them regular pay unless you don't pay for anybody's lost time on the day of the incident. You do seem convinced their problem was due to the fumes.

You probably dodged a bullet by only having two people go home, but what if you'd had more all saying "my head hurts, my eyes burn, my throat's sore, my little toe tingles, etc., and we all want to go home, with pay"? A Pandora's box there but yet the safety and well being of the workforce must come first.

Don D

It boils down to the law in your state and your policy, regardless of what others 'might' do. In our case, we pay the worker for lost wages for the remainder of the day of the incident/accident, but no more. Then when comp payments from the carrier kick in at day five, they receive 66.66% of their weekly wage with no retroactivity.

You seem to have a lot of air quality issues. Isn't this the same group who you posted are having breathing problems in the law firm and you're seeking advice on testing air quality? Is there by any chance a bean factory in your building or maybe a Campbell's pork 'n' beans canning company downstairs?