Every year, millions of workers in the United States are injured or made ill by their jobs. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 4 million work related injuries and illnesses are reported annually, and many more go unreported due to fear of retaliation or lack of access to medical care. The consequences are not just physical—they are emotional, financial, and often lifelong, affecting not just workers but their families and communities.
The systems in place to support injured and ill workers are deeply inadequate. Too often, workers face a confusing, inaccessible, and inequitable workers’ compensation process. Many are denied the care and compensation they need, leading to lasting trauma, poverty, and isolation. This burden falls hardest on low wage workers, immigrants, Black and Brown communities, and those in dangerous sectors like warehousing, construction, and food processing—populations already disproportionately impacted by unsafe working conditions.
Employers have a legal and moral responsibility to prevent workplace injuries and illnesses. This includes implementing strong health and safety programs, involving workers in identifying hazards, and responding swiftly to reported risks. When harm does occur, employers and the broader system must ensure injured workers receive timely, comprehensive, and culturally competent medical care, as well as fair compensation, without fear, stigma, or delay.
If you or someone you know has been injured or made ill by work, there are resources available. Local COSH (Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health) groups can help connect you to the right supports in your region including legal help, peer networks, and advocacy organizations. You can find your local COSH groups here.
Injured workers should not have to navigate these challenges alone. Through solidarity and organizing, we can push for stronger protections, fair treatment, and dignity for all workers, on and off the job.
Watch Raúl, a construction worker from Tennessee, share how he's working to prevent others from facing the same challenges he did with the workers' comp system. Like him, many are organizing through local worker groups for support and collective action.
Common Myths and Realities About the Workers’ Compensation System and Injured Workers
Myth: Workers injured or made ill on the job get adequate lost wages and medical benefits from the Workers Compensation [WC] systems to be made whole.
Reality: Many workers injured on the job end up in poverty, living in chronic pain, or experiencing family breakdown and depression, including suicides. WC systems have been corrupted by corporate lobby and business political influences to minimize costs to industry while cutting benefits to workers. Workers’ benefits are often delayed by legal challenges while they have no other source of income to live. Injured workers often suffer a lifetime of loss and isolation fighting a system that tries to monitor, control and minimize their treatment and rehabilitation.
Myth: WC is a ‘No fault’ system that provides timely and fair compensation to workers who have been injured on the job while creating an incentive for companies to implement effective injury and illness prevention programs.
Reality: The WC system is often used to limit what and how much workers can receive to compensate for traumatic loss of limb and emotional health. The bottom line is reducing the cost to employers which makes injuries and hazards in the workplace a regular cost of doing business. This normalizes the cost of worker injury and illness rather than act as an incentive for prevention.
Myth: WC systems are ‘non adversarial programs’ that do not require injured workers to have legal representation so as to avoid attorneys and legal fees.
Reality: Many workers are told that they do not need to be represented by an attorney. While one of the goals in the Workers Compensation system is to avoid the adversarial nature of the courts, this has been undermined by the business lobby over many years. Businesses and insurance companies are supported by legal and administrative resources to minimize and challenge claims. Workers are encouraged to seek legal advice to make sure they know their rights and are represented, when possible.
Myth: The coverage of medical benefits for work-related injuries is straightforward, comprehensive and just.
Reality: Nothing could be further from the truth. The WC system is full of contradictions and biased practices that result in poor treatment for injured workers and additional emotional trauma to people who are supposed to be helped by the WC system.
Myth: The injustices of the WC system affects all workers equally.
Reality: Race, immigration status, and class are just some of the factors that can work negatively against workers injured on the job trying to get fair treatment to deal with work trauma. This compounds the many barriers erected to stop workers accessing their rights and benefits.
Myth: The major cause of workplace injury and illness is workers errors, behaviors or other mistakes.
Reality: This outdated, unsupported “blame the worker” principle has pervaded and stifled the safety field for more than a hundred years. Most if not all worker injury and illnesses are preventable by the implementation of effective health and safety programs funded by management. Worker injuries and illnesses are the result of management failure to implement these safety system programs.