Frontline, Essential Workers With COVID-19 Want Workers Comp

CONNECTICUT —Denise Rogers is a frontline, essential worker. She drives a Propark bus transporting Yale New Haven Hospital employees.

Her husband is a cleaner for CT Transit buses. Denise became ill on March 17. Over the course of the next 10 days, she was back and forth at the emergency room until she was admitted on March 26 when she was finally tested for COVID-19. She tested positive. Her husband also became ill and tested positive. They both ended up in the intensive care unit. He’s still hospitalized fighting for his life, Denise said. She was discharged after weeks in the hospital, still positive for the disease and was told to isolate at her home where her daughter and grandchild also live.

“Some people think once you get discharged from the hospital it’s over,” she said. “It’s not.”

Rogers said that her employer Propark says she cannot prove she contracted the virus doing her job, and in order to apply for workers compensation, “the burden of proof is on the employee,” she said, adding that other workers too have been sick. She said that she has not been paid since March 17.

“None of us woke up and thought we’re gonna get this,” she said, referring to essential workers. “Not only did I have to fight for my life with this virus now I have to fight for” for workers compensation.

“Our lives matter,” the UFCW Local 371 member said. “I feel like I've been in a war zone. I wouldn’t wish this on nobody.”

Rogers is not alone

Four essential frontline workers who are currently sick or have recovered from COVID-19 urged Gov. Ned Lamont Thursday to sign an executive order that establishes a workers’ compensation presumption during a ZOOM media conference. Shuttle bus driver Rogers, a UCONN nurse, a corrections officer and a nursing assistant all say they contracted the disease while doing their jobs. They have either been denied workers comp or are not eligible, the insurers of their places of work say.

“The only reason they got sick is because they went to work,” AFL-CIO Connecticut president Sal Luciano said. “We’re banging pots and pans and putting hearts on our mailboxes yet we treat these heroes like zeros.”

Lisa O’Donnell, a CNA at Autumn Lake at Bucks Hill was diagnosed with COVID-19 on April 28. Her daughter who also works at the nursing home tested positive. O’Donnell said she contacted human resources at her job and was told she had to use her PTL time.

“We work hard. We’re wondering how we’re gonna pay our bills. It’s stressful,” she said. O'Donnell is a member of SEIU 1199NE

Diane Logan, an outpatient staff nurse at UConn Health for 15 years said as part of her job, she worked directly with patients in March doing COVID screening. On March 27, she developed symptoms and on April 2, tested positive. She said of the approximate 100 employees, 22 have also tested positive. She was ill for four weeks and has exhausted all her sick time.

“I’m concerned if I need to go to a doctor,” she said, “I have no sick time.” She is a member of University Health Professionals, AFT Local 3837.

Virginia Ligi, a correctional officer at Cheshire Correctional Institution said that “working on front lines is stressful on normal day.” She said she “can’t describe how hard it is” with the COVID-19 pandemic. “Everyone is on edge at work.”

On March 7, she said she got “knocked off my feet” with COVID-19.

For three weeks, and with three young children at home, she was desperately sick in bed at her home. She said she got two weeks of state sick time and used up the rest of her work sick time. She said “fellow officers were denied workers compensation.

"We deserve better,” she said, noting that the state Department of corrections was “very, very slow to get PPE” to officers. “That’s why a lot of people tested positive at Cheshire,” she said citing the lack of PPE. She said masks were given out well after she tested positive.

Ligi is a member of AFSCME Local 387.

Letters to Lamont

The AFL-CIO Connecticut, and state Senate and House Democrats all wrote Lamont about workers comp for frontline essential workers who have contracted the disease.

“For weeks, we have asked you and your staff to act on their behalf by creating an irrebuttable workers' compensation presumption. This would allow them to access the healthcare, wage replacement, disability and God forbid, death benefits should they contract COVID-19. There is no reason that these workers, who are doing the jobs no one else can or will do, should have to endure the stress of having their claims denied and being forced to wage an appeal during one of the most dangerous and frightening times of their lives,” union president Luciano wrote.

“Your own Department of Insurance appreciates the urgency of this situation, having fast tracked no-cost life insurance policies for health care workers. That's commendable, but we need to do just as much for those who are ill, because they acquired COVID-19 at work.”

Senate Democrats told Lamont in a letter that the state “must demonstrate our support for the few workers whose jobs are essential enough to require them to risk exposure to COVID-19 by reporting to work.”

Democratic legislators said Lamont should exercise his power to modify the Workers' Compensation Act to state that essential workers who have regular interaction with co-workers or strangers during the pandemic, that test positive for COVID-19, or are diagnosed by their health care provider as having likely contracted the virus, shall be presumed to have acquired the virus on the job.

House Democrats said that while, “There is much we cannot control about this pandemic, but making sure workers have an irrefutable workers’ compensation is one thing we can do. We urge you to quickly issue an executive order providing that presumption those frontline workers so desperately need and deserve.”