Race, age, gender bias hits workers across state

[flashl]

(California) In an age when an African-American, a woman and a senior citizen each has a pretty good shot of becoming president, you'd think that this country is finally evolving beyond discrimination based on race, gender and age.

But there's one area where such discrimination appears to be perfectly allowable: workers' compensation insurance.

Since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger successfully pushed his workers' comp reform package in 2004, some medical examiners have decided that they not only have the right but the state-mandated duty to pare down claims based on the race, gender or age of the worker.

The problem stems from the portion of the law dealing with “apportionment,” which requires employer-approved medical examiners to review injuries and determine to what extent they are related to unspecified “other factors” beyond the employee's working conditions.

The vagueness of the “other factors” phrase has allowed the medical examiners to use race, age and sex when determining how much the company is liable for the injury.

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