Employment Law Vs Workers Compensation Law

By | April 24, 2015

As employment law and workers compensation law are both related to people and their work place it is common to use them interchangeably. But they are key distinctions between these areas of law.

Employment law deals with factors such as:

  • Discrimination: Employers cannot treat employees differently according to color, gender, race, religion, disabilities and origin.
  • FMLA violations: Employers with more than 15 employees must follow the FMLA regulations that basically entitles individuals to 12 weeks of unpaid leaves if the employee has certain reasons for medical conditions.
  • OSHA: Occupational safety and health administration violations are the federal safety violations when an employer neglects to shield military base employees, offshore and long shore employees, federal staff etc.
  • Harassment: This includes any behavior meant to upset or disturb an employee at work place.
  • Wage and hour disputes: These disputes include failure to pay, unpaid time and illegal distribution of tips during tips. Problems involving freelance contractors, mis-classification of employees also falls in to this employment category.
  • Retaliation: Federal laws prohibit entities from reciprocating against a person who participates in discrimination, opposes an unlawful employment practices and files a charge of discrimination.

Workers compensation laws:

  • Workers compensation provides insurance cash benefits or medical care for employees who become ill or injured as a result of their job.
  • Employers pay for this and shall the employee is not required to contribute to the cost of compensation.
  • In a workers compensation none of the parties is determined as a culprit and the amount the claimant receives is not increased by the employers fault or employees carelessness
  • However the employee loses their right to workers compensation if the injury results from his/ her intoxication from alcohol or drugs or the intent to injure self.
  • Workers compensation is specially designed to ensure that employees who are disabled or injured on the job are eliminated with the need for litigation by providing fixed monetary awards. Also they provide benefits to dependents of those employees who are killed because of work related illnesses and accidents.
  • Some laws also protect employers and workers by limiting the amount an injured worker can recover from an employer and by eliminating the liability of coworkers in most accidents.
  • Federal statutes are limited only to federal employees or workers employed in some aspect of interstate commerce.

Few laws under workers compensation act:

  • Federal employment liability act(FELA): it provides that rail roads committed in interstate commerce are responsible for injuries to their workers if they have been negligent.
  • Merchant marine act provides sea men with the protection from worker negligence as FELA provides to rail road workers.
  • The federal employment compensation act: It provides compensation for federal and non military employees. It acts covers expenses due tot disability and may require the worker to undergo job retraining. A disabled employee receives two thirds of his/ her monthly salary and may receive more amount for permanent physical injuries.
  • Black lung benefits act provides compensation for miners suffering from black lung. This act requires liable mine operators for disability payments and also establishes fund by the secretary of labor.
  • The long shore and harbor workers compensation act provides compensation to employees of private maritime employers.

The above article gives information about employment law and workers compensation act.