Nebraska axes workplace safety provisions affecting public employers

The bill does not wipe out all safety obligations. Under the amended Section 48-443, public employers covered by the Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act still have to set up a safety committee and keep an effective written injury prevention program in place. For unionized workplaces, the committee can be formed through collective bargaining. For non-union employers, the committee must include equal numbers of employee and employer representatives, and the employer cannot handpick the employee members. Those members must be chosen through procedures prescribed in rules and regulations adopted and promulgated by the Commissioner of Labor.

The cost of maintaining and operating the safety committee must be minimal to the public employer. Public employers are also still required to compensate employee members of the safety committee at their regular hourly wage plus their regular benefits for time spent attending meetings or carrying out committee duties.

One provision that HR departments should keep front and center is the anti-retaliation rule, which survives the bill untouched. Employees who make any oral or written complaint to the safety committee or to any governmental agency with regulatory responsibility for occupational safety and health cannot be discharged or discriminated against for doing so. Any employee who is discharged or discriminated against on that basis is entitled to reinstatement and reimbursement for lost wages and work benefits caused by the employer’s action. That protection remains fully in force even as the surrounding safety infrastructure gets trimmed.

On the insurance side, LB 397 also amends parts of the workers’ compensation system. It amends Section 44-3,158, which governs coverage for assigned risk employers – Nebraska employers that are in good faith entitled to, but unable to obtain, workers’ compensation insurance through ordinary methods. The section sets out conditions under which an employer is disqualified from assigned risk coverage, including being in default on premiums, failing to reimburse an insurer for deductible amounts, failing to provide reasonable access to books and records for a premium audit, committing fraud against an insurer, or being owned or controlled by persons who controlled a previously ineligible employer.

The bill also amends Section 48-144.03, which governs cancellation and nonrenewal notice rules for workers’ compensation policies. Insurers must give 30 days’ written notice to the compensation court and the employer before cancellation takes effect, though that window shrinks to 10 days in cases of employer-initiated cancellation, nonpayment of premium, or failure to reimburse deductible losses. Similar rules apply to master policies and multiple coordinated policies obtained by professional employer organizations.