JACKSON, Miss.- Mississippi advocacy groups gathered in the capital city on Tuesday to discuss fair compensation for workers who have been injured on the job and can no longer work. It’s an ongoing battle that workers in the state have been fighting for years. Mississippi is one of seventeen states that puts a cap on the amount of workman’s compensation benefits. That cap is a maximum of 450 weeks of coverage, which is roughly about 8 ½ years, no matter the severity of your injury.
Jaribu Hill is the Executive director of the Mississippi Worker’s Center for Human Rights, and she says that many low-paid workers are at great risk in their work force.
“The way that they’re placed at great risk is because they are forced to work under hazardous conditions,” Hill said. “And often, when they complain, they are victims of retaliation.”
She said the fight has always been to increase benefits for temporary workman’s comp. issues, but for more than just that. “To provide unlimited coverage for those who, as we say, have been catastrophically injured. And what do we mean by that? Those who can never work again, because they are now in a wheelchair, or they’re blind because of a chemical spill, or they have nerve damage, or they suffer from an electrocution, like a man in Indianola, who actually lost both of his arms while trying to work under hazardous conditions.”
She added that around 100 workers lost their lives while on the job in 2013.
Here the whole interview with Hill HERE:
