Patrice Woeppel Ed.d.

Depraved Indifference: the Workers' Compensation System Patrice Woeppel Ed.d.

Every eight minutes in America, someone dies from a work illness or injury - more deaths than from most diseases. Depraved Indifference: the Workers' Compensation System dissects a system that destroys the health and life of workers, while throwing the preponderance of costs onto families and taxpayers. The title refers to a system in which worker deaths often cost a corporation far less than correcting a safety/health hazard in the workplace, and the employer is virtually immune from prosecution for the depraved indifference that results in severe injury, toxic exposure, or death. There has been very little general public awareness of this system that allows employers to maim and kill with impunity. The time is long overdue to re-evaluate a structure that evolved over 100 years ago, and doesn't meet the needs of seriously injured, ill, or toxic chemical-exposed workers, or the families of the estimated 66,000 who die each year from their work - a system that has fostered devastating and lasting damage to families, to communities, to our environment. Depraved Indifference: the Workers' Compensation System 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.