Many jobs in California demand that workers literally put their backs into it. Occupations that require heavy lifting place people at a greater risk of back injury. Poor lifting technique, fatigue and distraction make workers vulnerable to back injuries, but these are not the only sources of such injuries.
Insufficient training
The quality and extent of training vary across workplaces. Some workers never receive the training necessary to conduct their lifting duties in a safe manner. Managers might assume that everyone knows how to protect their backs, but some workers might not know the best strategies for preventing back injuries.
Lack of awareness
Even companies that provide proper training about back safety can have difficulty communicating the subject to people who have never experienced the extreme pain of back injuries. When the potentially debilitating pain of a back injury is an abstract notion in someone’s mind, safety warnings may not create a sense of urgency. To address this problem, training material could include first-person accounts from injured workers who suffered disability. This communication strategy helps to make the topic meaningful to people.
Legal support for workplace back injuries
People who get hurt while performing their work duties should have access to workers’ comp benefits. Reporting the injury to an employer is a necessary part of the process of filing a claim for compensation. This can be a routine matter, but workers sometimes encounter resistance to their requests for benefits. A company might discourage the reporting of work injuries or even retaliate against someone who does. The settlement offered by the insurer could fail to match the need of the injured worker. In these situations, people might want to pursue legal advice so that an attorney may connect them to independent medical exams or file lawsuits detailing the true cost of an injury.