President Obama announced a program called Protecting Our Workers and Ensuring Reemployment (POWER) to reduce federal workplace injuries and cut lost time. He said that in the fiscal year 2009 there were 79,000 new claims filed and more than $1.6 billion paid in workers compensation benefits. This program was running from 2011 to 2014.
His official quote was “Executive departments and agencies can and should do even more to improve workplace safety and health, reduce the financial burden of injury on taxpayers, and relieve unnecessary suffering by workers and their families.”
The new POWER program involves enhanced training for federal supervisors which is to occur within one year of entering their new positions and every three years after that.
In a related matter, the director of the Office of Workers Compensation Programs, Shelby Hallmark, recently testified to a congressional committee that his office “is dedicated to promptly adjudicating claims, promptly paying medical bills and claims for compensation.”
Here at Harris Federal Law Firm, we want to help President Obama in relieving unnecessary suffering by workers and their families and we do that every day by helping Mr. Hallmark and his people promptly adjudicate claims, pay medical bills and claims for compensation. Call us if we can help you.
