Published also as Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University. / Bibliography: p. 254-266.

Major changes have occurred in the workplace in the past decades. Technology has changed dramatically, innovative ways of utilising nuclear power have been developed, new chemicals have been introduced to the market and the adverse effects of other chemicals on both human health and safety and the environment have been discovered. This has influenced the nature of the workforce itself. Regulators in the different jurisdictions were required to react to the challenges that these changes represent. This thesis explores the responses in the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the Republic of South Africa by identifying the occupational safety and health (OSH) regulations, administration, enforcement and penalties which have been put in place to address the above mentioned challenges. It is impossible to mention all the changes in the workforce and workplace that have occurred in the recent years, and this thesis therefore focuses on the possibilities that different types of regulation offer to address some of these changes. Alterations to existing approaches are proposed to ensure that enforcement is improved and better targeted. The utilisation of third parties as surrogate regulators is also addressed. The central theme of this thesis is how the law can stimulate self-regulation by adopting a Safety Management System (SMS) within enterprises to encourage “self-critical reflection about their OHS performance”. The purpose of criminal sanctions in occupational safety and health regulation, the role of the prosecution in the enforcement of OSH strategies and the possibility of combining prosecutions of corporations with prosecutions of individual managers and directors who are responsible for non-compliance with OSH standards are also addressed. Although it is most important to ensure that workers are not injured or do not contract occupational diseases, in practice this does unfortunately happen. Therefore this thesis also discusses the compensation of injured workers. / Professor D. S. de Villiers

This study aims to ascertain the legal redress available to employees who suffer psychological harm as a result of workplace stress. On a general level, it identifies and assesses some of the available policy options, particularly as they relate to the interaction of statutory workers’ compensation schemes and the common law. On a more specific level, it examines and analyses various issues: the nature and extent of compensable psychiatric harm; the legal duty on employers to protect employees’ health and well being; the role of negligence; requirements specific to the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act 130 of 1993 (COIDA); and the causal nexus necessary to sustain a claim. The conclusion is reached that employees should utilise the workers’ compensation system as the primary vehicle to obtain redress if they suffer from occupational psychiatric harm. However, due to the law’s generally conservative approach to psychiatric harm and intimations that the Department of Labour intends setting strict requirements for claims for psychiatric harm in terms of COIDA, the common law of delict might continue to play an important role in claims for occupational psychiatric harm. The writer recommends that a hybrid system for compensation for stress-related psychiatric harm suffered in the course and scope of employment be adopted, with the statutory compensation scheme providing relatively limited benefits and the common law providing general damages if the claimant can prove negligence on the part of the employer; that the requirement of a recognised psychiatric illness be maintained for both statutory compensation and compensation in terms of the common law; that all parties’ interests are carefully balanced in delineating the employer’s legal duty to employers and that undue weight not be accorded to the terms of the contract of employment; that more attention be paid to factual causation and the development of lternatives/complements to the traditional conditio sine qua non test; that the validity of the circular instruction on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) be tested on administrative-law grounds; and that the stringent prescription requirements set by the circular instruction on PTSD be reviewed.

After careful review of all the relevant literature pertaining to motivation, performance management and compensation in the form of incentives, this thesis focuses primarily on determining whether a statistically significant relationship exists between individual needs and the choice of an incentive scheme option. The secondary aims of the research are to determine whether: A relationship exists between the job grade of an individual and the choice of an incentive scheme. A particular incentive scheme option is preferred by the employees in The South African Breweries (SAB). A particular preference exists, and if so, to make recommendations to SAB for consideration as alternatives to their existing incentive scheme options. After collation of the survey data from the respondents in the sample, the analysis and discussion of the results determined that no significant relationship exists between individual needs and the choice of an incentive scheme option. It was, however, determined that a significant relationship exists between the grade of the employees in SAB and their choice of an incentive scheme. 81% of all respondents indicated a desire for shares as an option in their Short Term Incentives (STI) which indicates a desire for shares in some form or another and may well indicate a level of confidence and commitment by the employees to the organisation. Although the research hypothesis was not proven, significant insights into remuneration within SAB was obtained, which has resulted in recommendations being made for further research into the option of shares in some form or another in the organisation. A further recommendation for SAB is to consider some form of share options for all employees in the organisation. As many other organisations that are performing at remarkable levels attest this performance to share ownership and the behaviour that emanates from it, it would be in the interests of SAB to further investigate the issue as it may improve performance, ownership and retention within the company.

The LRA 66 of 1995 was established to give effect to section 23(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, which guarantees that everyone has a right to fair labour practices. Amongst others, the purpose of the LRA is to advance economic development, labour peace and the effective resolution of labour disputes. At common law termination of employment was occasioned by the conduct of the employer or employee, in terms of which either party may terminate an employment contract by giving agreed notice or reasonable notice. The LRA broadened the common law concept of “repudiation” of a contract of employment in terms of which section 186 of the LRA now defines the term “dismissal” to mean various possible instances that can be caused by the employer or employee. Furthermore, section 185 of the same Act clearly states that a dismissal can be found to be unfair and makes provision for redress to an employee who would be aggrieved by a dismissal. Compensation is one of the remedies that can be awarded to an employee who is found to have been unfairly dismissed. Unlike the LRA of 1956 which gave the courts an unfettered discretion regarding the compensation that could be awarded, section 194 of the current LRA places a limit on the compensation amount that can be awarded. A decision hereon is determined with reference to whether the dismissal is found to have been procedurally, substantively unfair or both. The Act further requires that the compensation must be just and equitable. A challenge in applying section 194 of the Act in this regard is that there would be vast inconsistencies in terms of the amount of compensation to be awarded and that certain presiding officers could consider different approaches in considering factors to be determined when deciding on compensation. In many other instances compensation for unfair dismissal would be decided around the idea of solely punishing the employer. This research document is mainly concerned with identifying the said challenges through case law by considering the decisions of the commissioners and judges in interpreting the old and current provisions of section 194 of the Act. The old section 194 of the Act created a formula to be followed by presiding officers when making a determination on the compensation awarded. The interpretation of the section and its formula brought with it its own complications. The amended section 194 on the other hand, conferred a discretion on presiding officers to award compensation within the caps of 12 months and 24 months for procedurally and substantively unfair dismissal respectively, for as long as the compensation would be just and equitable in all circumstances. Relevant case law and the opinions of labour law experts have been of great assistance in interpreting the current section 194. The factors do not constitute an exhaustive list. They are a mere guideline to presiding officers so as to eliminate or minimize inconsistencies in awarding compensation.

The challenges in human resource allocation drive the present project. Conducted at an office of the Workers' Compensation Board of British Columbia (the WCB), the project aims at developing a simulation model of claim management operations to facilitate decision-making in resource allocation. In this context, resource allocation refers to the alignment of staff to claims. The components of the problem include the number of staff required and the types of staff required, given targeted system performance. The volume of claims, the profile of claims, the Workers Compensation Act, the board's business guidelines and the board's operational targets all influence staffing requirement. It is far from straightforward to answer the following questions: what is the optimal level of staffing? What is the right mix of skills? And what is the proper alignment of staff with claims? How will the system perform given a certain staffing level? How will change in the profile of incoming claims influence staffing requirement? A discrete-event simulation model was developed as a decision support tool in this project. The model was used to evaluate several resource allocation scenarios. Simulation showed that timeliness measures such as time to decision and time to closure would improve with additional resources, but the improvement was not drastic. At the staffing level of 14, compared to the current level of 12, time to decision for unadjudicated claims would reduce by 6%. Simulation further showed that specialization of staff by claim type might have a negative impact on system performance measures, because economics of scale were compromised. Finally, simulation showed that if Site Visits, a required procedure for adjudicating claims related to Activity-Related Soft Tissue Diseases, could be conducted by dedicated personnel, time to decision for these claims might reduce by as high as 60%. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

No description available.

It is well established that the frequency of claims filed for benefits under the workers' compensation program is dependent not only on the number of workers employed but is influenced by work characteristics such as the nature of work performed, the type of job, and the level of employment. This thesis hypothesized that, in addition to work characteristics, the frequency of claims filed is significantly related to worker characteristics such as age and gender. Using data on the actual number of claims filed for workers' compensation benefits by university employees, this study investigated the relationship between worker and job characteristics, and the incidence of claims for workers' compensation benefits. It is found that, for the aggregated workforce in the institution, there are significant relationships between the claims filed and the function, sedentary / non-sedentary type of employment, the job-family, and the age of the worker. However, on disaggregation, no significant relationships were found between the claims filed by employees in administrative, faculty, and research positions, and their age, gender, and the type of their jobs. Non-sedentary nature of the job was found to be related to claims filed by male workers in technical jobs, and possibly related to claims fueled by workers in the clerical category. Age of the worker was found to be significantly related to claims filed by younger workers in support activities such as maintenance, groundskeeping, and food services, and possibly related to professionals in similar activities. Gender was not found to be related to claims filed by workers in any category. / Master of Science

The objective of this research was to analyze the workers’ compensation insurance system for the logging industry in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Insurance rate components were fairly consistent among the nine states investigated. Approximately 72 percent of the workers’ compensation insurance rate is composed of loss components and components utilized to update and predict future losses of the year (time period) that the manual rate is in effect. The higher manual rates for the production based 2705 classification can be explained, in part, due to the different premium basis, i.e., production versus payroll. Upset factors based on 1) historical wage and productivity information and 2) a logging contractor survey, indicated that statewide upset factors were too low to equate production based payroll to actual payroll. Low upset factors provide a direct disincentive for contractors to move to an actual payroll basis. Experience modification, premium discounts and retrospective rating are used to customize premium to firm specific characteristics. The credibility test of the experience modification parameters indicated that a greater weight to firm specific characteristics is warranted for harvesting operations. The majority of logging injuries in North Carolina and Virginia occurred during felling and topping activities. An increase in lacerations as an injury type and topping as an occupation type in the coastal plain region may indicate that feller bunching and gate delimbing reduced neither the number or type of injuries. The high number of inexpensive losses contributes substantially to the logging industry’s poor safety image. A number of recommendations for improving the workers’ compensation system are presented. Recommendations which focused on system changes included eliminating numerical exemptions, establishing a $500 deductible clause, creating a mandatory retrospective rating plan for assigned risk policies, and designing greater credit and debit modifications based on firm characteristics. It was also suggested that a regional accident reporting system, funded from surcharged assigned risk policies, be established to provide actuarial data for rate hearings and loss control programs. Other recommendations included eliminating the 2705 "pulpwood only" classification, increasing and indexing the state’s upset factors, and determining the amount of premium slippage that occurs. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this project was to develop an employer handbook to assist them in developing a return to work program for industrially injured workers.