Depraved Indifference: The Workers’ Compensation System

All across America, in every state, across industries and occupations, workers are being injured, or killed on the job, or exposed to toxic chemicals from which they are dying.

What has happened to our nation that has allowed corporations and insurers to throw away the lives, the health of so many without caring, without fear of exposure, without being held accountable? It’s called Workers’ Compensation: the system we thought was there to protect us if we were injured on the job.

The title refers to a workers’ compensation system in which worker deaths often cost an employer far less than correcting a safety/health hazard in the workplace; and a system in which the employer is virtually immune from prosecution for the depraved indifference that results in severe injury, toxic exposure, or death.

Depraved Indifference represents over five years of research and interviews. The last chapter explores where we can go from here to create a system of fairness and justice, a system that works; that puts the responsibility and accountability on the employer to make the workplace safe for workers.