MichiganLegalAid.org

Workers Compensation for Farmworkers

• If your employment qualifies you for Worker's Disability and Compensation, you may qualify for compensation and medical care according to the worker's compensation laws if you are injured or disabled in the course of your employment.

• If your employer falls under the worker's compensation laws, the State of Michigan requires that the employer provide worker's compensation insurance to every worker. Employers who fail to comply with the law are guilty of violating a state law.
  

• If your employer is in agriculture, then he has to meet the following criteria in order to be covered under the Worker's Disability Compensation law: The employer has to employ 3 or more regular employees paid hourly wages or salaries, and not paid on a piecework basis, who are employed 35 or more hours per week by the same employer for 13 or more consecutive weeks during the preceding 52 weeks.

• You are entitled to reasonable medical care for work-related injuries or diseases. This includes medical, surgical, nursing and hospital services, and, under certain conditions, dental care, crutches and some artificial appliances such as eyeglasses, and hearing loss.

• Employers or their insurance company are required by law to provide these services. Ten days after beginning medical care provided by the employer, you may elect to see a doctor of your choice.

• You are entitled to weekly compensation benefits, which may be claimed as long as the disability and wage loss continue. Specific amounts and calculations depend on the date and type of your injury. If you lose an eye, finger, arm or other body part you are entitled to a specific amount for a prescribed number of weeks. If at the end of the specific loss period you still have a wage loss due to the injury, you may be entitled to further compensation.

• Details of work-related accidents or disease should be reported as soon as possible to your employer, supervisors or other persons in charge. Compensation shall be paid for disability extending beyond seven consecutive days not including the day of injury.

• Failure to give notice of an accident or injury within three months may result in loss of rights to compensation.

• Agricultural employers of one (1) or more employees who are employed 35 or more hours per week by the same employer for 5 or more consecutive weeks shall provide for such employees, in accordance with rules established by the director, medical and hospital coverage for all personal injuries arising out of and in the course of employment suffered by such employees not otherwise covered by the Worker's Compensation Act.

• Other special health considerations apply to farmworkers:
  

PESTICIDES — In farm labor, you run the risk of frequent contact and exposure to pesticides. If you have frequent contact with pesticides and begin to feel discomfort such as dizziness, nausea, vomiting, or rashes, consult with a physician as soon as possible. and exposure to pesticides. If you have frequent contact with pesticides and begin to feel discomfort such as dizziness, nausea, vomiting, or rashes, consult with a physician as soon as possible.

Spraying people with pesticides is against the law and should be reported immediately to Farmworker Legal Services. The law requires farmers to warn workers whenever they are going to work in a field that has been sprayed.

FIELD TOILETS AND WATER — Your boss must provide drinking water, toilets, and a place for you to wash your hands close to the field where you work.