Workers comp law
needs refinementThe issue: Hawaii's workers
compensation law allows broad
claims for stress injuries.STRESS has been recognized increasingly as a cause of sick leave and a basis for workers compensation claims. Employers should be held accountable for causing undue stress in the workplace, but not for the psychological reactions to normal and perfectly legal personnel actions. A loophole allows such abuse of Hawaii's workers compensation law.
Legislators thought they had closed the loophole four years ago after an employee successfully filed a claim of compensation for stress-related medical bills resulting from discipline on the job that was warranted. However, employees still are allowed to make workers compensation claims for stress stemming from such common job actions as promotions, demotions or transfers.
The stress that prompted corrective legislation in 1998 was claimed by a teacher who was disciplined for violating a rule against corporal punishment. The resulting law made it impossible for employees to seek compensation for stress caused by justified disciplinary action.
However, that did not keep Honolulu firefighter David Davenport from claiming compensation for psychological injury after he was denied promotion. The state Intermediate Court of Appeals ruled in December 2000 that the law allowed Davenport compensation, regardless of whether he had deserved to be promoted.
A bill pending in the Hawaii Legislature would expand the prohibition of stress-related workers compensation claims to include all lawful personnel actions. "You shouldn't have to be worried every time you take a normal workplace action," says Sen. Norman Sakamoto, who introduced the bill.
Stress can be regarded as a work-related injury, but it is so common that requiring compensation for such injuries would create a flood of claims large enough to drown any business. According to the American Institute of Stress, a million workers a day are on sick leave because of it. One corporation's study showed that 60 percent of its employee absences were due to stress-related problems.
As recognition of work-related stress has grown, workers compensation claims have soared. California employers saw stress-related claims skyrocket until sweeping reform legislation was enacted in 1993, sharply limiting the criteria for making such claims.
California law now provides that employers not be required to provide compensation in cases where psychiatric injury "was substantially caused by a lawful, nondiscriminatory, good-faith personnel action." The provision has brought stress-related workers compensation claims under control in California. Similar restrictions should be enacted in Hawaii.
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College not the place
for remedial learningThe issue: Many of those enrolling
in the UH system are ill-prepared
for higher education.THAT many students entering the University of Hawaii-Manoa and community colleges don't have the skills in English and math to handle college-level instruction indicates there is a gap in secondary-education standards that needs filling. The effort between UH and state Department of Education to overcome the disparity should be pursued vigorously.
University administrators report that a third of the freshmen at UH-Manoa and up to half enrolling at the community colleges are ill-prepared for instruction in English and even more aren't ready for math classes. A majority of these are graduates of public high schools. Although the administrators are careful not to fault the public education system, it appears that the skill levels deemed adequate for a high school diploma don't match up to what's expected when a graduate pursues higher education.
This discrepancy is evident in the remedial courses that community colleges must provide for "too many unprepared freshman," UH President Evan Dobelle told state legislators. Having to first raise basic skill levels detracts from "true higher education," cuts into the university system's scarce resources and wastes students' time and money on learning what they should already know.
Administrators say that one way to attack the problem is to build up communication between the university and the DOE so that standards are clearly drawn. Another would be to coordinate training and development of teachers for public schools and to share staff among the university and the DOE to strengthen curricula. Lawmakers and educators propose a data system to track students from public school through college to help teachers assess how well they have prepared their students for higher education.
These are good steps. Gathering information about what works and what doesn't would be valuable for teaching the teachers who are headed for the primary and secondary education classrooms. In these lean budgetary times, sliding personnel and programs among all of the state's educational institutions makes sense. Guiding interested students still in high school toward fields of study in which the university excels would give them a head start as well.
Dobelle and other UH administrators recognize that their mission to improve higher education cannot succeed without identical improvements in the public schools. The DOE should embrace their efforts. Those benefiting will be not only students bound for college, but those who will seek technical education as well as those who will enter the job market. As Dobelle points out, "Cooperation and coordination will maximize both the university's and the DOE's impact on the community."
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Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.Don Kendall, Publisher
Frank Bridgewater, managing editor 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
Michael Rovner, assistant managing editor 529-4768; mrovner@starbulletin.com
Lucy Young-Oda, assistant managing editor 529-4762; lyoungoda@starbulletin.comJohn Flanagan, contributing editor 294-3533; jflanagan@starbulletin.com
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