Natural Disaster & the Injured Worker
Great work they are doing and hope it continues as there is another one that is going to be devastating from what the news is saying. One company said they had many of the company employees affected by the storm and they want to make sure they are doing all they can to help the employees get through the hard times. We all know they will need the help in rebuilding their lives and homes.
This brings me to the second part and that is why some or any of these companies do not take care of their injured workers in the same way. An injured worker is in the same devastating position with the possibility of losing their house or maybe they have already. An injured worker can and has lost family and friends. Sometimes they lose self pride and feel like they have no self worth and cannot contribute to society in a productive manner. Life for an injured worker is much harder than most people will ever know. Some never are able to return to work because of the injury. Some have to learn a new skill. The ones that learn that new skill may than have the challenge of getting someone to give them a chance to get the experience in a new line of work.
The older workers that get hurt may never get a chance to learn that new skill for many reasons. I have heard many injured workers that have never returned to a previous employer because they were injured while working for them and the company no longer wants that risk. I would be willing to say that an injured worker did not plan on the injury nor did they want to be injured. As humans we are fallible and do fail it was not a choice that was made to get injured. Just go out and ask an injured worker if he planned to be injured.
Maybe companies should stand behind what they say in the safety polices or the values of the company and stand behind the worker and get them back to work. They say an injured worker has better recovery the quicker they get back into a work force. Most every worker knows they can be replaced. Companies should not replace them because of an injury.
They should be supported in the same way of people hurt by natural disasters.
James Parkinson
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