The New Jersey Business & Industry Association is opposing legislation creating a rebuttable presumption that certain essential employees contracted coronavirus on the job, which shifts the response costs to New Jersey’s workers’ compensation system and essential businesses paying premiums for that insurance.
Bill S-2380 is being heard in the Senate Labor Committee today.
“We appreciate the need to ensure that front-line workers who have contracted COVID-19, and who have been negatively affected, receive the benefits that they need to make them whole,” NJBIA Vice President of Government Affairs Ray Cantor said. “However, using workers’ compensation as a primary method to provide these benefits will create costs that will overwhelm a system not designed to handle claims for a worldwide pandemic.
A letter submitted to the Legislature last week by the New Jersey Business Coalition, featuring dozens of business and nonprofit groups including NJBIA, detailed how the legislation is not needed due to the availability of federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) funding for employees who are unable to work due to COVID-19 related reasons.
The coalition, however, also warned that those PUA payments would be reduced by the amount the employee received from workers’ compensation.
