Recently, the State requested an explanation from a company that manufactures plastic about why it did not report workplace injuries to the State's Workers' Compensation Board, which could result in their being fined upwards of $52,500.
An investigation of the company revealed that the company delayed reporting approximately 21 injuries to the Board.
Any work-related injury must be reported in less than ten days, according to state law.
As a result of the findings the company was required to appear in court in order to prove how they were under no offense of the law in reporting the injuries to the Worker's Compensation Board.
The report showed that a large percentage of the unreported injury cases dated back a year or more.
No one company, it seems, has ever been subject to such a severe serving of discipline.
The option to penalize companies for not reporting their workers' injuries was first instated in 1944, but research of the law revealed no prior case records of any companies being subjected to such penalization.
Lawyers representing the plastic manufacturer also failed to locate another case.
Workers' Compensation law is actually this attorney's area of expertise.
The government hasn't yet released any statements regarding the charges of failing to report injuries.
The company's human resource manager announced that they anticipate the hearing will bring closure to the charges.
This is because it is seen as an opportunity to further debate the issues with hopes of a fair examination of the data that has been provided thus far.
Even as these comments were made, the steelworkers union united with other firm employees in accusing the company of hiding these injuries from both Workers' Compensation and OSHA.
Some go so far as to suggest that this behavior has resulted in significant savings for the company.
On the occasions when a worker's injury prohibited him from working, the plastic manufacturer paid him for that lost time and paid his medical costs.
The problem comes in when the company doesn't report the incident and therefore avoid the cost of compensating a worker whose injuries may continue to recur for many years after the initial accident, as well as getting out of an inspection.
After the union's allegations, the company filed 60 more cases of non-related injuries, some that went back to 1994, with the Worker's Compensation Board.
The company is said to have misunderstood what was required by the law, and agreed that some of the cases should have been filed sooner.
Should the Board discover the firm has transgressed the law, they're apt to face fines as steep as $2,500 for every case not disclosed within the mandated 10-day period.
Worse yet, they may incur criminal charges for their actions.
The division of criminal fraud in the attorney general's office was alerted to the matter by the Workers' Compensation Board.
There are ongoing investigations regarding further charges, including the under reporting of workers who may have even lost fingers during the course of their work.
Another former worker for the company, in a suit filed for damages totaling $350,000, claimed the firm terminated her health benefits even as they continued to cash out her insurance payments-all while she was out on Workers' Compensation.
A call to the international union to open a large-scale investigation into company affairs was made by the Director of the United Steelworkers of America; the director's demand was seemingly motivated by the union's discoveries at their single plant under fire.
This investigation will also affect the four plants located in Indiana and Illinois.