Maiming Workers for Fun and Profit in Texas

Texas Governor Rick Perry likes to come up to my home state of Illinois to try and recruit employers to move to Texas, bragging how his state is friendlier to business (meaning less expensive to operate in). Now an article in Salon details one of those business friendly practices that is particularly insidious.

Texas is the only state in the U.S. that allows employers the option of "going bare" for Workers Compensation--that is, not buying insurance (or meeting obligations via other approved routes like self-insurance). It leaves the employer, technically at least, vulnerable to lawsuits from injured workers. But the Lone Star State employers who want to save money don't appear to have to worry too much about lawsuits from the crippled and maimed undocumented workers they leave without medical coverage.

They just say that their workers are "independent contractors" and thus responsible for making their own decision about whether or not to purchase WC insurance. And when those workers fall and break their backs, or lose a finger or hand, well, that's just pure capitalism in action, Texas style.

According to the article, the Texas legislature tried to correct these abuses--and got bushwacked, as they might say down there, and so the bill died on the vine.

Take a look at the full article here.http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/how_do_they_sleep_at_night%E2%80%9D/