Q: I have been injured at work and my employer has hired a vocational rehabilitation consultant who wants to place me in a job that I do not want. What are my rights in this situation?
A:
There is currently much fighting about this between the injured employee, the employers, and insurance companies. An injured worker has a right to up to two years of job retraining or vocational rehabilitation. The employer or insurance carrier must pay for this job retraining or vocational rehabilitation. These provisions of the Workers’ Compensation Act were put into law to benefit the injured employee. For the past several years, however, many employers and insurance carriers have been using this portion of the Act against the injured employee. They have been doing this by telling the injured employee they are going to retrain them as, for example, a security guard or a telephone sales solicitor. Many employers and insurance carriers make no effort to provide meaningful job retraining, and would rather stick an injured employee in a job that pays minimum wage and offers no advancement.
We do not believe this is meaningful job retraining and, therefore, we recommend that employees who are injured at work seek legal advice regarding their rights to vocational rehabilitation so that they can get retrained in a job that will provide a good income in the future.
Our firm is available to offer consultations to people regarding their rights under the vocational rehabilitation portions of the Workers’ Compensation Act.