You are a newly hired environmental safety and health professional for a midsized manufacturer of widgets. You currently have three manufacturing facilities in three separate, but geographically close states. Because of unprecedented growth in the widgets market, your company decides to build another factory. One out of the hundreds of indicators the executive staff is looking for is which one of their current states they operate is most employer friendly. In other words, which state treats employers and employees the same when it comes to regulatory requirements? Complete a research paper that compares and contrasts the differences between the state in which you live and two other adjacent states. In your paper, you should different states (e.g., definition of employee, wages paid, weeks of temporary disability, etc.), identify and explain the commonalities in the fundamental laws of the workers’ compensation system in the three states, interpret the resources that are available for employers in each state (e.g., monthly courses taught, written guidance, employer rights, etc.), discuss the types of coverage available to employees in each state, and argue which state is more employer friendly from an employer’s perspective when it comes to administering a workers’ compensation program. Be sure to use the tools provided by the U.S. Department of Labor, Division of Federal Employees’ Compensation (DFEC) State Workers’ Compensation Officials web page. This page provides a link to the workers’ compensation board for each of the 50 states as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and Puerto Rico.
