Criminal Charges Against Garment Manufacturer & Labor Contractor

The Los Angeles County District Attorney filed criminal charges against the owner of a garment manufacturing business and the labor contractor that supplied workers. These charges were brought under a relatively new joint liability law that applies to wage theft and workers’ compensation. State officials also say it is the first prosecution to use newly … Read More »

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Bureau Targeting Restaurants for Inspection Audits

The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau will conduct targeted inspection audits on the food and beverage service industry next year. The audits will target many of the 16,000 experience-rated risks currently in the 9079 classification. That, as it prepares to deconstruct the 9079 Restaurants or Taverns classification into six new classes effective this year on … Read More »

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Mid-Year Results Show Premium Increasing

The California workers’ comp industry is on pace to see written premium exceed pre-pandemic levels this year. Higher wages and payroll growth are driving the increase. Through the first six months of the year carriers wrote some $8.5 billion in workers’ comp premium. The full year rate would put the industry at $17 billion, which … Read More »

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Bureau Wins in DoorDash Clash

A California Department of Insurance administrative law judge says the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau correctly reclassified DoorDash’s operations from computer programmers to the classes covering package delivery operations and telecommuters. Now, the wait is on to see if Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara accepts the decision, returns the proposed decision to the ALJ, or adopts … Read More »

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San Francisco Sues Hospitality Company Over Worker Misclassification

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu is suing Qwick Inc. for allegedly misclassifying restaurant and hospitality workers as independent contractors and denying them minimum wage, overtime pay, paid leave, and workers’ comp coverage. The city also has an ongoing misclassification lawsuit against Uber and Lyft for classifying its drivers as independent contractors instead of employees. … Read More »

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Covid-19 Claims To Count Against X-Mods

The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau’s Classification and Rating Committee voted to recommend updating the experience rating system to put Covid-19 claims into employers’ X-Mods. The experience from Covid-19 claims has never been included in the rating calculation, but that could change as of September 1, 2024. The Bureau is a private organization with quasi-governmental … Read More »

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Classification Changes In Store For Food Manufacturing and Processing

The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau is conducting a top-to-bottom review of the workers’ comp classifications covering food manufacturing and processing in California. The idea is to consolidate some similar classes and break apart others that have become unwieldy. Currently, there are 22 classifications under review, and Bureau staff have identified several for a deeper … Read More »

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Uninsured Inspections Are Down

for violating Labor Code section 3722 last year. The state’s Uninsured Employer Enforcement Program completed 41 inspections last year and had another 51 open at year-end. The program levied nearly $1.8 million in penalties against the employers found operating without valid workers’ comp coverage but collected only $243,310 of the total – a collection rate … Read More »

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