Posts Tagged ‘work’

            John was an interstate truckdriver for over twenty years and never experienced any health issues. Because of the nature of his work, John would spend extended hours in a seated position driving his truck. John started to notice a numbness in both feet which had been getting progressively worse.  John finally got concerned enough to go to his doctor and was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis. John’s doctor was very concerned that John would develop blood clots which could easily lead to a stroke. John was advised to stop driving immediately. The doctor also prescribed Coumadin, a blood thinner, for John to take and advised John that he would be on this medication for the rest of his life. John’s doctor was adamant that John’s job duties as a truck driver wherein John was immobile for hours at a time while driving was a substantial contributing cause to the development of the deep vein thrombosis.

ISSUE:          Does John have a valid claim for Workers’ Compensation benefits?

ANSWER:     Yes. It is not unusual for truck drivers such as John to develop this problem. John will be entitled to Worker’s Compensation benefits as well as medical coverage as his prescriptions may last a lifetime. In all likelihood John will never be able to return to the type of work he was doing.

Disclaimer: The above article is for instructive purposes only and each case is fact sensitive.  Consultation with an attorney should be obtained instead of reliance upon the legal issues discussed in this column. 

    A TEXAS  worker injured on a drill rig in the Northern  part of Pennsylvania is entitled to be covered by workers comp under the laws of Pa. despite having signed a contract with his Texas based employer that he would  pursue any work injury claim in Texas and only accept Texas benefits. Any person injured on the job in Pennsylvania is entitled to utilize  the Pennsylvania Workers Comp Act regardless where their employer is based.

            Tony was hired to work at the natural gas extraction sites In Pennsylvania at his home in Texas. When Tony signed the employment agreement, he stated that he would submit any Workers’ Compensation case to the state of Texas since his employer was principally based in Texas. Tony did not realize that the reason for this clause in his contract was because Texas Workers’ Compensation benefits for injured workers are far less comprehensive than those for injured workers in Pennsylvania.

            Tony was involved in heavy physical work on the jobsite and while lifting he sustained several herniated discs in his back. Tony was told that he had to pursue his compensation claim in the state of Texas and under the laws of that state.

ISSUE:          Is Tony’s employer correct?

ANSWER:     No. In the state of Pennsylvania, regardless of where the contract was entered into, an employer cannot compel an injured worker to only pursue compensation benefits as this employer attempted to do in one state. Pennsylvania has jurisdiction over any injuries occurring within the state of Pennsylvania regardless of where Tony’s employer is based. Tony would be wise to utilize the laws of Pennsylvania as opposed to the laws of Texas. For example in Texas if Tony is advised by any doctor including the doctor hired by Tony’s employer that he Tony has recovered, Tony’s medical and loss wage benefits would stop automatically. In Pennsylvania Tony would be allowed a hearing and would be allowed to present his own testimony including his treating physicians.

Disclaimer: The above article is for instructive purposes only and each case is fact sensitive.  Consultation with an attorney should be obtained instead of reliance upon the legal issues discussed in this column. 

            Rusty injured his left arm while lifting heavy widgets at work with his employer, ABC Widget Company. The employer acknowledged the injury and began paying Rusty workers compensation wage loss benefits as Rusty was unable to work. Fortunately, Rusty received excellent medical care and was released to return to work without restriction by his doctor about six months after the injury occurred. At that time, his wage loss benefits were suspended. Before the injury, Rusty worked second shift and also worked some overtime hours when requested to do so. Upon returning to work after the injury, Rusty was advised that overtime was no longer available due to a downturn in the economy. While Rusty’s return to work hourly wage was the same as it had been before the injury, he was no longer working overtime so his paychecks were smaller.Rusty filed a petition before a Workers Compensation Judge seeking payment of partial disability benefits due to his current loss of earnings.

QUESTION: Is Rusty entitled to payment of partial disability benefits?

ANSWER: Not necessarily. Typically, in order to have his suspended benefits reinstated, Rusty had to prove that his earning power was again adversely affected by the injury that formed the basis of his original claim. With sufficient evidence to prove that Rusty’s loss of earnings was attributable to something other than his work injury (such as economic circumstances),  Rusty’s reinstatement may be denied. Rusty’s medical release to return to work without restriction will assist ABC in demonstrating that Rusty’s loss in earnings was not caused by disability arising from the work-related injury, but  by economic circumstances. In light of these circumstances, ABC will likely be able to prevail and the request for payment of partial benefits will likely fail. 

Disclaimer: The above article is for instructive purposes only and each case is fact sensitive.  Consultation with an attorney should be obtained instead of reliance upon the legal issues discussed in this column. 

     Workers who are on employers parking lots before and after work hours are covered for any injuries they sustain if the are going to or leaving work.

           The Pa. Commonwealth Court recently addressed the question of what constitutes an “abnormal working condition” in a workers compensation case that alleged post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In Washington v. WCAB (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania State Police) , 11 A.3d 48 (2011), the injured worker, Washington, was employed as a Field Trooper with the  State Police. In addition, he also worked as a member of the Forensic Services Unit (FSU)providing forensic and photographic services. In 1998, he was involved in the investigation of a murder/suicide in which a father set his vehicle on fire burning himself and his eight-month old infant daughter to death. In addition to photographing the vehicle and the bodies at the crime scene, he attended the baby’s autopsy and filed a report of the crime scene via photographs. In 2006, Claimant filed a claim petition in which he alleged that he suffered a work related injury in the nature of PTSD resulting from his work on the case where the baby was burned to death. He alleged that he would cry, that he suffered from nightmares, that he fired a bullet across the side of his chest which required hospitalization, that he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, that he was diagnosed PTSD, and as a result he was no longer able to work.

           As Mr. Washington was alleging a “mental/mental” injury (a mental injury resulting from mental stimuli), he had the burden of establishing objective evidence that he suffered a psychological injury and that the injury was more than a subjective reaction to normal working conditions. Pennsylvania Courts have ruled that psychic injury cases are highly fact-sensitive and for actual work conditions to be considered abnormal, they must be considered in the context of the specific employment. The Commonwealth Court has recognized that the job of police officer is one which is inherently highly stressful. Therefore, Washington was still required to demonstrate by objective evidence that his PTSD diagnosis was more than his subjective reaction to normal working conditions in order to recover benefits under the Workers Compensation Act.

          The Commonwaelth Court found that the activities performed by Washington in the baby death investigation were normal and routine activities relating to his FSU job duties. The court reasoned that the activities may have been unusual for Claimant to endure as a member of the FSU; however,  they did not constitute the requisite abnormal working conditions to support the award of compensation benefits.

The Valley News Dispatch published the following workforce/training article on the growth of the jobs and educational providers that now are training for the oil and gas industry.

By Rossilynne Skena, VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Kurtis Fish is only 20 years old and he’s already making $80,000 per year.

Same goes for his 24-year-old brother, Ronald Severin.

The brothers, who completed a Marcellus shale training gas well drilling program at Westmoreland County Community College in September, work as chainhands on a Marcellus rig in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

The Las Vegas natives were laid off from their sheet metal jobs in Nevada when they heard about WCCC’s roustabout training program.

“We’re both young guys,” Fish said. “There wasn’t very many opportunities in Vegas for us. We really didn’t like staying on unemployment. We didn’t want to waste our time.”

So they ventured to Pennsylvania and graduated at the top of the class.

Within the next three years, thousands of new Marcellus shale jobs are expected to join the region’s work force.

That means Fish and Severin’s story will likely begin to echo.

And it gives local colleges a lot of work to do to prepare Western Pennsylvania’s workers. Some are creating new programs or modifying current ones to meet the demands of expected jobs.

A study last spring conducted by Pennsylvania College of Technology, an offshoot of Penn State University, looked at expected drill and rig activity in Westmoreland, Beaver, Washington, Green and Fayette counties. Other studies have looked at central and northern Pennsylvania.

It analyzed the type and number of Marcellus occupations needed between 2010 and 2014.

In 2014, there will likely be nearly 10,900 Marcellus jobs in that five-county region, the study found.

“There’s a lot of things that impact how fast this goes, but the opportunity and the amount of gas that’s coming up in the high performing wells … it’s jobs for several generations,” said Tracy Brundage, Penn College’s managing director for work force development and continuing education.

There are three main types of jobs needed to bring a Marcellus well into use: predrilling, drilling and production, she said.

So, how do you get one of those jobs?

Many companies offer specific training, Brundage said, but they also want people who bring specific skills. Those things can be learned at community college programs, two-year college programs and four-year college programs.

Williamsport-based Penn College offers training in safety, heavy equipment, welding, commercial driver’s license, electronics, fork-lift operation, instrument and programs, natural gas measurement, safety, supervisory control and data acquisition.

The college also offers roustabout training, a common program among local community colleges, that prepares workers for entry-level laborer jobs.

A two-year or four-year degree is necessary for more technical jobs, like engineering and surveying, applied science, surveying technology, construction management, electronics and computer engineering technology, welding and fabrication technology, CAD technology and heavy construction.

Penn College and WCCC are two hubs for Marcellus ShaleNET, a $4.9 million community-based job training grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Community College of Allegheny County also offers training, and Butler County Community College is readying training programs for this summer.

Local labor

In years past, most Marcellus well workers were from out of state, but that’s changed within the past year, Brundage said.

“A lot of companies that we’re meeting with now are saying most of the workers are Pennsylvania residents,” she said.

But, she pointed out, some of those could be “transplants” to the state, like Fish and Severin.

The jobs are lucrative, but they’re not easy money.

“I know it’s significantly better than the average wages for other industries,” Brundage said. “The opportunity is there, particularly if people are interested in a job where they can earn good money.

“But they have to work hard. The hours are long, the schedules are different than in a typical industry. … It’s a different type of work mentality than a lot of traditional jobs that we’re used to.”

Roustabout work, in particular, is tough.

“It is very, very physically demanding work — outside in all kinds of conditions, getting the well sites set up and getting it ready to produce,” CCAC spokesman David Hoovler said. “It’s definitely not an easy job, not for the faint of heart.”

The majority of people applying for roustabout jobs are young, local residents, Hoovler said. Roustabout base pay typically is about $28,000, but can be considerably more.

“We’re not getting people coming from a great distance away,” he said. “I think the majority have been from Allegheny County and directly in this region.”

WCCC has run several roustabout training programs with classes on average of 15 students, said Byron Kohut, director of Marcellus ShaleNET’s western hub at WCCC.

Area companies partner with the school, providing rig tours and explaining operations. That means the company will present their work to the class and take the students to a rig site for a presentation.

On the last day of class, the company gets first pick of the students.

No money changes hands, he said, between the school and the drilling companies.

The graduation rate is close to 100 percent, and the job placement rate is 60 percent.

“We don’t guarantee employment, but we do provide assistance,” Kohut said. “This industry is going to do nothing but help the region.”

Some roustabouts work two weeks on, two weeks off, while other companies have regular day shifts.

Average hourly starting pay is $18 to $25. Between $50,000 and $100,000 is common for a full-time roustabout, Kohut said.

Classes at WCCC have had both 20-year-olds and 50-year-olds, and those students have been placed locally.

Range Resources, one of the area’s largest local drilling companies, works as a sort-of general contractor, relying upon subcontractor-type companies for the actual drilling. Those service companies are hiring locally, spokesman Mike Mackin said.

Of its workers, 95 percent are local, Mackin said.

“That percentage of local workers is just getting higher and higher,” he said.

Range Resources is the company that completed the well near Pittsburgh Mills mall in Frazer — the first Marcellus shale well to be drilled in Allegheny County. The majority of its activity is in Washington County.

Drilling one well can require up to 400 people working in 100 different jobs, according to Mackin.

At first, Mackin said, out-of-towners were working in Western Pennsylvania, but that has changed as it’s more cost-efficient for companies to hire local workers and as colleges begin implementing training programs.

The industry wide average salary for those working in the Marcellus shale industry is $60,000.

Halliburton, another service company that contracts with oil and natural gas companies, conducts company-specific training for safety, along with other on-the-job training, said Shawna Melton, human resources supervisor for the company’s Northeast district.

Field operator positions require a high school degree, while field engineers need a college degree, she said.

Halliburton recruits throughout the state and provides training grants through Penn College, she said.

Work for local schools

Both WCCC and CCAC offer roustabout programs.

In addition to its three- to four-week, noncredit roustabout training, WCCC teaches an associate program in welding. It expects to provide more programming in the future.

“Our number one priority is jobs, training falls second, so what we’re doing is developing a system that will identify talented individuals,” said Byron Kohut, director of Marcellus ShaleNET’s western hub at WCCC.

The college will partner with Career Link in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio to identify jobs.

Roustabout programs have begun, he said, and the curriculum for the other five positions are still in the works.

CCAC officials talked to Marcellus drilling companies, organizations and government agencies, looking ahead at what jobs would be available.

“We discovered that actually a number of our existing programs, some with some minor changes and some as they currently existed, already aligned with projected needs within the industry,” CCAC’s Hoovler said.

Some examples are the college’s welding program, which now includes a special type of pipe welding used in the natural gas industry, and its first-responder course that now includes training for fires and accidents at wells.

CCAC also has a certification program in bio-remediation and courses in the two-year bio-technology program focusing on water used in the drilling process.

The college’s roustabout program, made up of 10 students, began last week. Hoovler said the college hasn’t decided if it will offer future roustabout programs.

“We are always looking at our course offerings to see when there are changes in the work force (and) how we can develop a program to fit that need,” Hoovler said.

Though BCCC doesn’t offer any specific Marcellus shale related programs yet, it does provide a number that apply to the industry, like emergency responder training and safety training, according to Stephen Catt, executive director of work force development at the college.

BCCC is also a part of the ShaleNET program, Catt said, working with WCCC and Penn College.

The college is trying to also look at sustainable jobs — what will be here after the rigs leave — in the filtration, distribution and environmental fields, he said.

BCCC plans to offer roustabout training this summer.

Some vocational and technical schools also offer Marcellus programs.

Lenape Tech in Manor Township teaches a certification course to be natural gas and oil facility technician. About a half-dozen adult learners enrolled in the program.

Steel Center Area Vocational Technical School in Jefferson Hills a program that provides general knowledge to a variety of jobs in the natural gas industry, like frac operator, welltender, line locator and rig hand.

To learn more about Marcellus ShaleNET, visit here.

Career not for timid, inattentive

On the day brothers Kurtis Fish and Ronald Severin completed their training to be laborers on a Marcellus shale gas drilling operation, there were suitors jumping to hire them.

Three companies interviewed the Latrobe brothers, and drilling company Nomac hired them right away.

It shipped them to Arkansas for an additional three-week training course. Then it was on to Oklahoma to work on a rig for a final company evaluation.

Now, they work near Scranton on shifts that are two weeks on/two weeks off.

The job pays well, but it’s not easy.

While stationed at the rig, Fish wakes up at 3 a.m. and boards a van at 4 a.m. to ride to the rig site. He works from 5:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., then gets back to the main camp by 7 for dinner, a shower and to get ready to do it all again come 3 a.m.

What’s more, it’s hazardous work.

“A lot of people look at the money first, but people have got to realize this is one of the top-paying, most dangerous jobs out there,” Fish said. “If you come to work not paying attention — I don’t mean to scare people — but you could die.”

His crew will take an extra 10 minutes to do a job safely rather than do it wrong.

On the job, the brothers clean the rig, take out trash, and “trip pipe” — changing drilling bits. It’s a promotion over their original job and it puts them one step closer to better jobs, Fish said.

He hopes to move up to the motorman job, a position that checks and works on various motors at drilling sites.

Though it is physical labor, Fish said he and his brother have always been active workers who keep in shape.

“If you don’t mind getting dirty, working in the rain, wind, snow — it wouldn’t bother someone who wouldn’t mind doing that,” Fish said.

As for the future, Fish sees himself progressing in the oil fields.

“They’ve got a saying, ‘You chase the rig,’” Fish said. “So this rig I’m on could go to Wyoming … I can pick up and go with my rig and keep my position, or quit and try to find a rig in Pennsylvania that needs a hand.”

He’s open to going wherever the rigs go.

“It’s a job, and that’s how it works in the oil fields,” Fish said. “You chase the rigs.”

Six high-priority Marcellus occupations

• Derrick operators

• Rotary drill operators

• Service units operators

• Roustabouts

• Welding and brazing operators

• Truck drivers

Source: Westmoreland County Community College

          Dudley had applied for a job as a laborer for a local construction company. The owner of the construction company asked one of his workers, Fast Eddie, if he knew Dudley and what his reputation was as far as his work ethic. Fast Eddie responded that he did not know much about Dudley’s work ethic but he had heard a lot of stories about Dudley being a convicted felon who could not be trusted. Dudley was not hired and when he found out what Fast Eddie had said to his boss concerning Dudley’s reputation, Dudley was irate.

            Dudley sought the assistance of an attorney because he wanted to know whether he could bring a slander action against Fast Eddie.  Fast Eddie stated that he had heard from one of his friend, Snidely,  who had known Dudley a long time, that Dudley had been in jail a number of times. As it turned out, Dudley was never in jail and was never even a suspect in any criminal activity.

ISSUE:          Will Dudley be successful in his civil action against both the person  (Snidely) who originally spread the rumor as well as the individual who repeated that rumor (Fast Eddie) to Dudley’s potential boss?

ANSWER:     Yes. Snidely, the original worker who represented that Dudley had a criminal record and could not be trusted, had committed slander. Under Pennsylvania’s Common Law republication rule, the second worker, Fast Eddie who repeated that information to the potential boss who was deciding whether to hire Dudley, would also be liable. One who repeats defamatory statements is as liable as the original defamer in a civil action for slander.

Disclaimer: The above article is for instructive purposes only and each case is fact sensitive.  Consultation with an attorney should be obtained instead of reliance upon the legal issues discussed in this column.