June 28, 2023 Finds Rafael Barajas failed to maintain heat illness plan as worker dies on first day of work PARKLAND, FL – On Dec. 31, 2022, a 28-year-old worker arrived from Mexico with his work visa in hand, ready to start 2023 with a new job at a Parkland farm where vegetables awaited harvesting. The next day, while many enjoyed the New Years' Day holiday, the newly arrived worker was placing wooden stakes in the ground to support bell pepper plants at C.W. Hendrix Farms. Struggling to keep pace with more experienced farmworkers, he complained of fatigue and leg pain as the area's heat index neared 90 degrees. Sometime later, co-workers found him unresponsive in a shallow drainage ditch. Like several co-workers, he experienced symptoms related to heat illness. An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration determined that Rafael Barajas, the Okeechobee farm labor contractor who hired the young farmworker, could have prevented his death by following established safety practices regarding heat-related hazards. Read More

June 26, 2023 HIALEAH, Fla. – State workers’ compensation fraud investigators arrested a pair of businessmen Monday, accusing them of significantly understating their drywall company’s payroll figures in order to avoid paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance premiums and fees. According to arrest reports, Francisco Picado, 46, of Hialeah, and Lester Picado, 44, of Miramar, ran Hialeah-based Superior Drywall. The reports don’t make clear how or if the two are related. The reports state that the pair had contracted with a third-party company in 2019 to handle payroll and workers’ compensation coverage. Authorities said the Picados were responsible for reporting accurate payroll figures to that company, but instead fudged the numbers — by a lot. According to the arrest reports, Superior Drywall reported about $38,000 in payroll, but the real number was nearly 100 times that figure: more than $3.25 million. Read More

June 20, 2023 Employees who should've been paid $37 an hour were paid $25 an hour, a U.S. Department of Labor investigation found. The subcontractor on a South Florida Water Management project owed workers $171,998 in cash and benefits after paying some employees only 67% of what they should have been paid, the U.S. Department of Labor announced. The money went to 11 people electricians employed by Clewiston’s Quality Electric Contracting. That’s an average of $15,636.18 in pay and benefits per person. Read More

June 9, 2023 For the first time in six years, Florida has a new health care provider reimbursement manual, governing workers’ compensation fees for doctors. But the manual already could be considered three years out of date. It also will soon face a legal challenge by insurers because of new physician dispensing rules in it. The Florida Division of Workers’ Compensation adopted the 2020 edition of the fee schedule manual in 2021, but under state law, the Legislature must ratify the changes if it is shown that they would cost businesses in the state more than a nominal amount. Until this spring, lawmakers had declined to act on the reimbursement plan since 2016, leaving Florida doctors who treat injured workers with some of the lowest payment schedules in the United States, officials have said. Read More

June 7, 2023 The owner of several Key West staffing companies is on his way to prison after a federal judge sentenced him to more than two years for hiring unauthorized alien workers and failing to pay taxes on their wages. Batyr Myatiev, who for 10 years supplied labor to hotels, bars and restaurants in the Keys, must also pay more than $6.8 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Attorney for south Florida said in a bulletin last week. The felony information filed in federal court said that Myatiev’s staffing companies signed contracts with the hospitality firms to provide more than 100 alien workers. Read More

June 7, 2023 Florida ranked third most dangerous state for construction workers. InsuranceRanked analyzed all 50 states and the District of Columbia and ranked them by injury, illness, and fatality rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and inspection, citation, and penalty data from OSHA. According to data from 2021, the fatality rate for full-time construction laborers was 9.4 per 100,000 workers, making it the third-highest fatality rate among private industries. Construction work poses significant hazards, including working at heights and handling dangerous equipment. Given these circumstances, prioritizing construction safety has become increasingly crucial due to a convergence of various factors. Recently passed federal legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act is expected to increase the number of building and infrastructure projects significantly soon. This increased workload could put more laborers in harm’s way. Read more