Opinion ID: 757637
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Excel's Medical Layoff Policy

Text: 5 In order to reduce the rate of injury and to lessen the impact of injury on its workers, Excel began, in 1989, an Ergonomics and Medical Management Program that provides ergonomics training and catalogs the physical requirements of each production job at the plant. Its experts in ergonomics and occupational medicine designed Medical Management Job Analysis (MMJA) forms by which the physical and environmental demands of each job could be measured and closely compared with an injured employee's medical restrictions. Excel uses these forms for job-matching: matching injured employees with the available jobs that are consistent with their medical restrictions. 6 On the medical management side of Excel's program, an injured employee is referred first to the plant's nursing staff for evaluation, even though he may be receiving treatment from his own physician. If an employee is able to resume work but has temporary medical restrictions, a plant nurse compares the restrictions to the essential functions of the employee's job and determines whether the employee may safely perform that job within those restrictions. The nurse consults the employee himself, the MMJA form for that job, and others familiar with the job (like the production supervisors and the plant's safety director, ergonomics coordinator and ergonomics monitor). 7 If an employee cannot perform his regular job, it is the company's policy for the plant nurse to try to find an interim light-duty job or to create a make-work assignment that the temporarily restricted employee can perform safely until he is able to return to his former job. 5 Excel and the Union have set aside certain jobs from the normal job bidding process for this purpose; a number of the least physically demanding jobs are reserved for rehabilitating employees. It is Excel's policy to confine light-duty jobs and assignments to employees whose medical restrictions remain temporary; once an injured employee's medical restrictions become permanent, however, the employee must either obtain a regular position he can perform or go on medical layoff. 8 According to Excel, an employee's restrictions are treated as permanent when his physician has determined that he has achieved his maximum medical improvement and will recover no further. Excel explains that its policy of keeping light-duty assignments as temporary avoids having the finite pool of light-duty assignments taken permanently by persons whose conditions were not improving. A temporarily restricted employee may perform light-duty work for indefinite and varying lengths of time, but when his medical restrictions are determined to be permanent because his medical condition is not expected to improve further, he becomes ineligible for light-duty work. 9 Once the permanent medical restriction determination is made, an Excel nurse reevaluates the employee's abilities to see whether his restrictions permit him to perform the essential functions of his regular job or of other available production jobs, with or without reasonable accommodation. As before, the nurse compares the employee's permanent restrictions with a job's essential duties, using the MMJA form, consulting with the employee and others in the plant familiar with the job, and observing the job in question. If his permanent medical restrictions preclude him from performing his regular job and any other available job, the employee may examine the plant's job postings and bid book to find either production or nonproduction jobs that he feels he can perform. Then the nurse meets with the employee to confirm the fact that there are no jobs he can perform. The ergonomics monitor compares the employee's restrictions with the MMJA form description of his regular job to confirm whether the employee could perform the job with accommodation. The plant's safety director, in the presence of the Union representatives and the plant's ergonomics coordinator, then explains to the employee that his restrictions preclude him from performing his regular job. If no accommodation or other available jobs can be found, the permanently restricted employee is placed on medical layoff. 10 Under its policy, Excel then offers the employee a complete tour of the plant to familiarize the employee with other production jobs he may believe he can perform. Although the tour shows the employee only the other production jobs, the employee is free to inquire about and apply for any nonproduction jobs, such as office clerical positions. He is also free to suggest accommodations that might enable him to perform his job or another available job. Excel claims that, since 1991, its policy has enabled at least 45 employees with permanent medical restrictions to continue working in the plant without being placed on medical layoff. 11 Once a permanently restricted employee is placed on medical layoff, Excel automatically bids the employee for all vacant production jobs that become available during the next 12 months. 6 While on layoff, that employee may call the plant on a weekly basis to ask about jobs and may bid on any vacant job, whether it be production or nonproduction. If the employee is the most senior applicant, he wins an automatic bid while on medical layoff. At that point, the nurse again compares the employee's medical restrictions with information about the available job. If the employee is able to perform the essential functions of the position, with or without accommodation, he is awarded the position and taken off medical layoff status. According to Excel, since 1991, at least 6 medically laid-off employees have been offered different production jobs through this process. However, if an employee remains on medical layoff for 12 months, he is terminated.