{"id":25533,"date":"2019-03-18T15:51:31","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T21:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25533"},"modified":"2019-03-18T15:51:31","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T21:51:31","slug":"expedited-work-site-inspections-discussed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25533","title":{"rendered":"Expedited work site inspections discussed"},"content":{"rendered":"

State labor investigators would have more authority under a bill considered March 18 by the Business and Labor Committee.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Tony Vargas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Under LB577, introduced by Omaha Sen. Tony Vargas, the commissioner of labor could force a contractor to halt work on a site and expedite an investigation if a violation is found to threaten public health and safety.<\/p>\n

Vargas said classifying someone as an independent contractor, rather than an employee, allows employers to avoid paying unemployment and other taxes, as well as workers\u2019 compensation and unemployment insurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorkers who are misclassified as independent contractors work without the legal protections typically afforded to employees,\u201d Vargas said.<\/p>\n

He said employers who are willing to \u201ccut corners\u201d when classifying employees also are likely to be engaging in other risky practices.<\/p>\n

One Omaha construction company recently failed to shut off electricity while two men were working close to an active power source, Vargas said. Their vehicle made contact with a power line, he said, sending both men to the hospital.<\/p>\n

Juan Alvarado of Omaha, who worked with the two men injured in the Omaha accident, spoke in support of the bill. Only two feet of space separated the metal cage containing the workers and the active power source, he said, a shortcut that saved the contractor only $800.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, somebody\u2019s life, at 25 years old, changed for just $800,\u201d Alvarado said. \u201cIf somebody had driven through the job site, they would have seen it was clearly in violation of [Occupational and Safety Health Administration regulations].\u201d<\/p>\n

Felicia Hilton, representing the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters, also supported LB577. The young man injured in the Omaha accident was classified as an independent contractor without workers\u2019 compensation coverage, Hilton said, which means Nebraska taxpayers likely will be paying for his injuries for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf an inspection happens and you see dangerous things happening on the job site, chances are that not only are the workers not trained, but they don\u2019t have workers\u2019 compensation [coverage],\u201d she said. \u201cThis just makes sure that [the commissioner] has the ability to stop work when he sees that public safety and public health, for the workers in particular, are [threatened].\u201d<\/p>\n

Opposing the bill was Commissioner of Labor John Albin. Misclassification of an employee, in and of itself, does not affect the safety of the general public, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis bill does not define the scope of the safety review required by the department\u2019s onsite investigators or the amount of training in safety issues [they] would be required to possess,\u201d Albin said. \u201cEven an OSHA-style inspection of the working conditions at a work site would not satisfy LB577\u2019s requirements because an OSHA inspection is limited to the health and safety of workers onsite, not the general public.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State labor investigators would have more authority under a bill considered March 18 by the Business and Labor Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[184],"class_list":["post-25533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-and-labor","tag-sen-tony-vargas"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25534,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25533\/revisions\/25534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}