Turley, Redmond & Rosasco wishes all our Long Term Disability, Social Security Disability and Workers' Compensation clients (along with fellow lawyers in the disability bar) a blessed Thanksgiving! See you on Monday.
Want to know how Workers' Comp, Social Security Disability and Long Term Disability claims inter-relate? I will be lecturing next week on 11/22/05 in Garden City at a day long seminar entitled "Advanced Workers' Compensation in New York" My topic will be "Coordinating Workers' Compensation, Social Security Disability and Long Term Disability Claims". In the past year, I have seen an increasing number of clients who wish to have all their disability related claims handled by one law firm. There are specific strategies that can be followed in order to protect a claimant's entitlement to all three benefits at the same time.
For those attorneys and workers' compensation claims professionals who have not yet signed up for next week's seminar, you can still do so by contacting Lorman Educational Services toll free at 1-866-352-9539 or at www.lorman.com. So far, we have over 30 attendees signed up, so it should be a lively and informative disability seminar. Hope to see you there.
It’s Veterans’ Day. Let’s review some sad and disturbing Iraq War statistics: 15,568 veterans wounded in Iraq. 23,889 returning Iraq veterans have claimed VA benefits for PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and other mental conditions. 2,062 veterans dead. About 100 spectators at my local Veterans’ Day parade this morning. Something is wrong.
As a veteran myself, I take these numbers personally. It won’t be long before more and more returning Iraq veterans cross my office threshold to file for Social Security Disability. Whether its amputations, severe burns, blindness or PTSD, the Iraq veteran will face the same bureaucratic barriers all my disabled clients face when filing for Social Security Disability. They will have to wait months to get the same silly (yet cruel) denials most of my clients get initially. Then they will have to wait at least another six months to see a Social Security Judge where at least they have a fighting chance. Unlike the New York Workers’ Compensation Board, which set up a special expedited procedure for 9/11 claims, the Social Security Administration has no such program for returning Iraq veterans. Something is wrong.
Turley, Redmond & Rosasco thanks all veterans for their service and sacrifice. We wish those who return from Iraq good health and an uneventful transition back to civilian life. Today is your day. Thank you for defending all of us.
After 12 years of never raising benefit levels for injured workers, Governor Pataki now wants to add insult to injury. In a transparent attempt to burnish his "right wing" credentials while launching his Presidential ambitions in Iowa, the Governor is proposing workers' compensation reforms (more accurately labeled "deforms") which will only put additional strain on the average working man and woman. The proposed reforms, if enacted, would take away benefits from the most seriously injured workers and force them onto the welfare rolls. Can you hear the "ching, ching" of your property taxes going up again? Thats the bottom line of this proposal - shift the cost of unsafe working conditions from employers (where it rightly should be) to taxpayers and local government. I don't think that Republican Senators, up for re-election next year, will support changes that increase property taxes and hurt individual voters. Much like President Bush's Social Security "privatization" plan, I certainly hope this so called reform is "dead on arrival".
In the Governor's press release, he sites workers' compensation costs as preventing companies like Delphi, the bankrupt auto parts manufacturer, from remaining competitive in the "global" economy. What a crock! A simple reading of the weekly business papers disproves this misleading statement. Delphi declared bankruptcy on October 8, 2005 in the wake of a corporate scandal involving alleged fraud by senior executives "cooking the books". The US Securities and Exchange Commission is currently investigating and they are being sued in Federal Court for fraud. Despite the charges, the day before the bankruptcy, Delphi had the audacity to boost severance packages for top executives by $27 million! Delphi entered bankruptcy voluntarily to avoid having to pay pensions to retiring workers because the pension plan was underfunded by more than $ 10.8 billion dollars! Delphi is another Enron. By citing Delphi in his press release, the Governor lost all credibility on the workers compensation issue. We all want to preserve Delphi's jobs in New York, but workers' compensation costs have nothing to do with this company's problems. It may or may not play well in Iowa, but working New Yorkers will see it for what it is - corporate greed.
The problem for manufacturers in New York State is CHINA - not workers compensation costs. If employers would simply take the proper precautions to increase safety in the workplace, workers compesnsation costs would go down. If Governor Pataki's deform plan is enacted, New York will resemble the poor houses of Dickens's London more than the proud State that currently exists. Stop gutting the American dream for injured workers. If you would like to help stop this misguided plan in its tracks, contact your State Senator here and tell him you are "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore". Also, feel free to contact me. We've got a lot of work to do.
The Workplace Project, the trail blazing immigrant rights organization on Long Island, will be honoring Turley, Redmond & Rosasco, LLP at it's 13th Anniversary Gala on Wednesday, November 9, 2005 at the Fox Hollow Inn.
The attorneys at Turley, Redmond & Rosasco have worked cooperatively with the Workplace Project for over 10 years to improve working conditions for Latino immigrants in New York. As detailed in Workplace Project founder Jennifer Gordon's recent book, Suburban Sweatshops, the New York economy thrives on the backs of immigrant workers who work in the type of deplorable working conditions not seen since the times of Dickens. It has been our honor to help these individuals receive workers' compensation benefits when they are seriously injured on the job. It is sad to report that the majority of workers' compensation death cases I see in my office today involve immigrant workers who are doing jobs that few American born workers would even consider. Far and away, it is these immigrant workers who come to my office in wheelchairs and missing limbs.
The Workplace Project serves a vital role in protecting the human dignity of immigrant workers in New York and Long Island. Many elected officials and friends of this fine organization will be on hand for this Gala on November 9th. Sponorships, journal ads and tickets are available by calling Executive Director Nadia Marin-Molina at (516) 565-5377. Many of the Turley, Redmond & Rosasco attorneys and staff will be present along with frinds of our law firm. Please join us on November 9th to support The Workplace Project. We look forward to seeing you there.
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