Minneapolis Workers' Compensation Blog

If you feel constant pain in your hands, fingers or other body parts, you may have a repetitive stress injury. Repetitive stress injuries affect tendons, muscles, ligaments and other soft tissues. These injuries are common and painful.

Repetitive stress injuries may not seem severe, but they can lead to carpal tunnel, tendinitis, trigger finger, bursitis or other injuries. These injuries commonly occur in jobs that require repetitive tasks.

Working conditions in the meat industry can be dangerous and workers suffer many more injuries and illnesses than workers in many other fields. Also, journalists and even government agencies have found it difficult to gather information they believe the public deserves about the industry’s treatment of its workers.

This situation might surprise some Americans. A 1906 novel about the meat industry may still be the most important investigative journalism in history and is still read in many schools. The Jungle shocked America with details of immigrant workers in dangerous and disgusting working conditions in Chicago’s animal slaughterhouses and meat processing plants.

You can find it in your home and you can find it in your office. Ammonia is a common and versatile chemical used in everything from household cleaners to lawn fertilizer to refrigeration systems. If you work in one of Minnesota’s many meat processing facilities, it’s likely you interact with ammonia every day.

Despite ammonia’s multi-purpose capabilities, you must exercise caution when handling to protect yourself and others.

Some workplace injuries eventually heal completely. But it is common for an injured or sickened worker to never recover fully. Nevertheless, most work accident victims want to go back to work as soon as they are able. As with any disabled worker, survivors of workplace injuries in Minnesota are entitled to reasonable accommodations to allow them to do their jobs under the U.S. Americans With Disabilities Act and the state Human Rights Act.

There is obviously an intersection between workers’ compensation and employment law here. What if a person gets hurt on the job, receives workers’ compensation, and returns to work, only to be refused a reasonable accommodation by their employer? Could that person be entitled to an employment discrimination claim in addition to the workers’ comp relief?