The workers who get treated the worst by their employers are generally speaking, temporary workers. Sure, companies like Amazon or Walmart have terrible reputations, but if your employer is a staffing agency, they tend to see you as disposable. Many injured workers we’ve helped don’t get treated like they are people.
A close second to being treated badly is being a remote worker. Quite often you work for people you’ve never met face to face beyond a Zoom call. I’m talking about jobs like billing specialists, medical transcription, medical coders, data entry, etc. There are thousands of people living and working from home in Illinois for companies in other states.
What often happens is that because you haven’t established a relationship with your supervisors like you would if you saw them in person on a daily basis, they feel emboldened to treat you poorly. It’s a fact of human nature that people will do things over an email that they wouldn’t be comfortable doing face to face.
When it comes to Illinois work comp cases, it’s important to know that if you physically work in Illinois, you can bring a work comp case here if you get injured. This is true even if your employer had you sign some document that says you agree to file a work comp case in another state. They can’t make you waive your rights to Illinois work comp benefits.
We see mostly repetitive trauma injuries like carpal tunnel or cubital tunnel syndrome with remote workers. That’s because most remote jobs involve a lot of typing. But believe it or not, if you work from home and hurt your back lifting a box or slip on a wet floor, that could be a case too.
The problem a lot of these employees face is that because they are treated poorly, the employer isn’t helpful in educating them on their work comp rights. This is against the law, but it happens a lot. In one recent call to our office, an injured worker couldn’t get the employer to file a report or get them a claim number so she could get a case going. In another they were told they aren’t eligible for workers compensation benefits. In a third, they had all of their login access shut down without notice and they won’t respond to calls or emails.
These are fortunately solvable problems. We can look up who the insurance company is on a database of all employers to verify coverage and who to send bills to. You don’t need one of their claim numbers to get medical care. You’ll get a case number when we file your case with the State of Illinois. Not filling out an accident report doesn’t take away any rights from you.
So I do warn you to be careful as these employers often will take advantage of their hard working employees. They will show you no appreciation for the dedication you’ve shown to your job. And they will make you think you don’t have rights that you definitely do have to pursue a work injury claim.
We’d love to help you if you were hurt at work and promise to treat you like a family member or friend. There’s no cost to talk to us or hire an attorney. Please reach out any time via the online chat or by phone at 312-346-5578.
