Archives
Injured Workers' Experiences of the Workers' Compensation Claims Process
Institutional disrespect and the neoliberal state
Margarita Parrish
School of Behavioural and Community Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Cumberland Campus, NSW
Toni Schofield
Behavioural and Community Health Sciences, University of Sydney, NSW
Abstract
This paper reports on the results of a recent qualitative study of injured workers' experiences of the claims process in NSW. It provides an analysis that suggests that recent legislative amendments to improve the process have been of very limited value.
The paper argues that the obstacles to reform derive from the institutional practices associated with the day-to-day management and administration of the claims process. While these practices are informed by a corporate-rationalist administrative logic, they are enacted through intersubjective relations that involve systematic disrespect and humiliation of work-injured claimants by insurance company officials. Such practices embody the principles and techniques of an intensified neoliberal governance in the Australian state.
Keywords
workers' compensation, claims process, workers' experiences, corporate-rationalist administration, institutional practices, inter-subjective relations, disrespect and recognition
Article Text
With significant alterations to workers' compensation policies throughout Australia since the 1980s, the public management of injured workers has been transformed. Common law remedies have all but disappeared, and injured workers are obliged to return to employment as soon as practicable. Medical legitimation of injury remains fundamental but injured workers are also required, where appropriate, to participate in rehabilitation programmes to expedite their recovery and return to work.
State and Territory-based statutory authorities such as WorkCover in NSW and WorkCare in Victoria are publicly responsible for administering work injury management schemes. However, the day-to-day management of injured workers is conducted through the workers' compensation claims process that is administered by private insurance companies. They are paid a fee by governments to do so. To date, the management of the claims process throughout Australia has attracted sustained criticism (see below). This has been especially marked in relation to delays in payment to injured workers and to the imposition of significant barriers to injured workers' access to treatments and programmes associated with facilitating their return to work.
...continues...
References
ABS (1994) Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses New South Wales, October 1993, Catalogue No 6301, 1: Sydney.
ABS (2001) Census Basic Community Profile and Snapshot (Online) Available at: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs%40census.nsf/4079.
Alcorso C (1988) Migrant Workers and Workers' Compensation in New South Wales, Social Welfare Research Centre, Reports and Proceedings, 71, SWRC, University of New South Wales: Kensington.
Beeson M and Firth A (1998) Neoliberalism as a political rationality: Australian public policy since the 1980s, Journal of Sociology 34(3): 215-231.
Bohle P and Quinlan M (2000) Managing Occupational Health and Safety in Australia
Calzoni T (1997) The client perspective and the missing link in work injury and rehabilitation studies, Journal of Occupational Health and Safety - Australia and New Zealand 13(1): 47-57.
Clapham K, Schofield T and Alcorso C (1993) Managing the Work Injury of Women from Non-English-Speaking Backgrounds, The National Women's Consultative Council AGPS: Canberra.
Coburn D (2000) Income inequality, social cohesion and the health status of populations: the role of neo-liberalism, Social Science & Medicine 51(1): 135-146.
Coburn D (2004) Beyond the income inequality hypothesis: class, neo-liberalism, and health inequalities, Social Science & Medicine 58(1): 41-56.
Considine M (1996) Market bureaucracy? Exploring the contending rationalities of administrative regimes, Labour and Industry 7(1): 1-27.
Franckom K (1992) Injured and silenced: working with workers' compensation claimants and their families, Australia and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy 13(4): 219-223.
Foucault M (1980) Power/Knowledge, Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 (ed) Colin Gordon, Pantheon Books: New York.
Fraser N (1989) Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory
Fraser N and Gordon L (1994) Reclaiming social citizenship: beyond the ideology of contract versus charity, in N Fraser, A Yeatman, E Zaretsky, E Grosz, P Lawler, J Camilleri, A Davidson, L Gordon and P James (eds) Critical politics: From the personal to the global
Honneth A (2003) Redistribution as recognition: a response to Nancy Fraser, in N Fraser and A Honneth Redistribution or Recognition?: A Political-Philosophical Exchange
Honneth A (1995) The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts
James C (1993) Social processes and reporting or non-reporting, cited in P Bohle and M Quinlan (2000) Managing Occupational Health and Safety in Australia
Kenny DT (1995) Barriers to occupational rehabilitation: an exploratory study of long-term injured workers, Journal of Occupational Health and Safety, Australia and New Zealand 11(3): 249-256.
Kenny DT (1998) Returning to work after workplace injury impact of worker and workplace factors, Journal of Applied Rehabilitation Counselling 29(1): 13-19.
Mayhew C and Conroy D (1996) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander occupational health and safety: a pilot study of hazard exposures, patterns of work-related injury and illness, cited in P Bohle and M Quinlan (2000) Managing Occupational Health and Safety in Australia
Niemeyer L (1991) Social labelling, stereotyping and observer bias' cited in PM Trief and RG Donelson (1995) The potential impact of the workers' compensation system on quality of life outcomes: a clinical analysis, Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation 5(3): 185-193.
Pilowsky I (1985) Malingerophobia, Medical Journal of Australasia 143: 571-572.
Purse K (1998), Workers' compensation policy in Australia: best practice or lowest common denominator? Journal of Industrial Relations 40(2): 179-203.
Quinlan M and Mayhew C (1999) Precarious employment and workers' compensation, unpublished paper, cited in P Bohle and M Quinlan (2000) Managing Occupational Health and Safety in Australia
Simmonds M and Kumar S (1996) Does knowledge of a patient's workers' compensation status influence clinical judgement? Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation 6(2): 93-107.
Stubbs R and Underhill GRD (1994) (eds) Political Economy and the Changing Global Order
Weber M (1964) The Theory Of Social And Economic Organization
WorkCover NSW (2000/01) Statistical Bulletin, WorkCover NSW: Sydney.
WorkCover NSW (2001) Simpler, Fairer, Faster. A Better Approach to Workers' Compensation in NSW, WorkCover NSW: Sydney.
WorkCover NSW (2002) Guidelines, WorkCover NSW: Sydney.
WorkCover (2003a) Injury Management and Return to Work Program: Workers' Compensation and Injury Management (Fact Sheet 2), WorkCover NSW: Sydney.
WorkCover (2003b) What to Do if There is an Injury: Workers' Compensation and Injury Management (Fact Sheet 3), WorkCover NSW: Sydney.
WorkCover (2003c) Claims and Benefits: Workers' Compensation and Injury Management (Fact Sheet 4), WorkCover NSW: Sydney.
eContent Home