Prepared To Meet Your Legal Needs

Large companies may have an incentive to avoid safety

by | Jun 9, 2020 | Workers' Compensation |

Pennsylvanians who work for older, more established companies might feel more secure in their jobs and believe that the environments are relatively safe. However, a recent study found that older, established companies are less likely to invest in safety to save money.

According to research conducted by a professor at Oregon State University, older and larger companies were much less likely to have invested in safety. The researchers found that large corporations are likelier to accept the nominal penalties that they might receive from OSHA for safety violations instead of making major investments in workplace safety. The researchers also found that large companies that avoid making investments in safety gain economic advantages over companies that do invest in safety.

The researchers found that companies that had injury claims filed against them by their workers survived 56% longer than companies without injury claims. Companies that had 100 or more employees and that did not invest in safety were much likelier to survive than similarly sized companies that invested in safety. However, companies with 30 or fewer employees that did not invest in safety did not gain an economic advantage by failing to invest in workplace safety. The researchers stated that the study shows that safety regulations are not enough to address dangerous working conditions and that more needs to be done to address the problem.

People who are injured while they are working should talk to workers’ compensation attorneys to learn about their rights. The lawyers will work to help their clients recover all of the types of benefits that they should receive. In addition to recovering benefits to pay for their clients’ medical expenses and rehabilitation costs, the lawyers might be able to help workers who have been left with disabilities to recover benefits to replace a portion of their incomes.

Archives