You pay dues for benefits that are supposed to hold up when something goes wrong. Then you get hurt, the hour bank starts draining, and a comp check arrives that is smaller than it should be because of an offset nobody warned you about.
Zavodnick & Lasky Personal Injury Lawyers represents union members hurt on the job across Philadelphia. Call +1 (215) 875-7030.
Which Philadelphia Trades Do We Represent?
Philadelphia is a union town, and the injuries look different depending on which card is in your pocket. The claim mechanics are the same. The way the injury happens, the way the contract reacts, and what your fund does next are not.
Laborers
Manual excavation, demolition, concrete and cleanup. Back and shoulder injuries dominate, and so do struck-by injuries from work happening overhead. Laborers are frequently on multi-employer sites, which is where a claim against a general contractor or another sub becomes possible. Our Philadelphia construction accident lawyer page covers those.
Teamsters and drivers
Loading, unloading and highway work. Rotator cuff and lumbar injuries from repeated lifting, plus vehicle collisions that carry a claim against the Philadelphia at-fault motorist alongside comp.
Carpenters
Falls from height, saw and nail gun injuries, and knee and shoulder wear from years of framing and formwork. Repetitive-use claims here are often denied on the first pass and won on medical testimony.
Painters and finishers
Falls from ladders and scaffolding, plus chemical and solvent exposure claims that fall under Pennsylvania’s occupational disease provisions rather than the ordinary accident rules.
Electricians
Arc flash and electrocution injuries, falls, and injuries caused by equipment that was supposed to be locked out. Failed lockout procedures frequently point at a party other than your employer, which is covered on our industrial accidents page.
Ironworkers and steel erectors
The most severe injury profile of any Philadelphia trade. Falls, crush injuries, and injuries from failed rigging or hoisting equipment, which raise product and third-party questions immediately.
We also represent nurses, plumbers, operating engineers, bricklayers, mechanics, police officers, teachers and municipal workers.
How Do Union Benefits Interact With Workers’ Comp?
Comp and your union benefits do not simply stack, and the place people get hurt financially is the offset.
The offset provisions live in Section 204(a) of the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act. An employer or insurer can reduce your weekly comp check for certain other benefits you receive, including severance, unemployment compensation, half of your Social Security old age benefits, and pension benefits to the extent the employer funded them.
For a union member, that last one matters. Pension contributions made by a contractor on your behalf can be treated as employer funded, which opens the door to an offset a lot of members never see coming.
Two other things are worth watching.
Welfare fund coverage. Your health and welfare fund often keeps paying while you are out on comp, subject to hour bank rules. Once the hour bank runs out, coverage for your family can lapse even though your comp claim is going fine.
Contract light-duty language. Many Philadelphia agreements limit what light duty an employer can assign and how seniority is treated. A modified job offer that would be binding on a non-union worker may not be, depending on what your agreement says. Refusing suitable work can suspend benefits, so this is worth checking before you answer the offer.
What Happens to Your Benefits While You Are Out?
The honest answer is that it depends on your agreement, your fund and how long you are out, and that anyone who gives you a flat answer without reading your contract is guessing.
What we can tell you is which questions decide it: how your hour bank is calculated and how many months of coverage you have banked, whether your fund has a disability provision, what your agreement says about maintaining benefits during a work-related absence, and whether your employer is funding a pension contribution that will trigger a comp offset. The comp side of that picture is summarized in the state’s Workers’ Compensation and the Injured Worker guide. The union side is only in your agreement.
Those answers exist in documents. Getting them early is the difference between planning around a gap in coverage and finding out about it when a pharmacy declines your card. The benefit rules themselves, and the forms each stage runs on, are published by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry.
If you are a member out on a work injury, call +1 (215) 875-7030 and bring your agreement.
Do You Handle Injuries That Happened in Another State?
Union drivers and traveling trades are frequently injured outside Pennsylvania, and in some situations benefits can be sought in more than one state.
Pennsylvania has specific rules for what are called extra-territorial injuries, which determine whether a claim can be brought here at all. Which state gives you the better outcome is a real question with a real answer, and it depends on the wage rates, the benefit duration and the medical rules in each.
If you were hurt out of state on a job that runs out of Philadelphia, that is worth sorting out before you file anywhere.
What Members Ask Before They File
Can my contractor fire me while I am out on workers’ comp?
An employer may terminate for reasons unrelated to the claim, and accepted wage loss benefits generally continue afterward. Retaliation for filing is unlawful. Union members often have contract remedies alongside that, including grievance rights that run on their own deadlines. See workers’ comp benefits after termination.
Do I file a comp claim or a grievance?
Often both, and they run separately. Comp handles the injury and the wage loss. The grievance handles contract issues such as recall rights, seniority and improper light-duty assignments. Missing the grievance window while focused on the comp claim is a common and avoidable loss.
Which employer is responsible if I was working out of the hall for a different contractor each month?
The contractor you were working for on the date of injury. That sounds simple and gets disputed constantly when the injury developed over time rather than in one event, since the last employer with exposure is generally the one on the hook.
Will filing a claim affect my standing in the local?
Filing a workers’ compensation claim is a legal right, not a disciplinary matter, and it is not a basis for discipline by an employer. Concerns about how a claim will be perceived on the next job are common and are worth talking through rather than acting on quietly.
Talk to Someone Who Knows How Your Contract Works
The comp claim is the part everyone focuses on. The part that costs union members money is usually somewhere else: an offset applied against a pension your contractor funded, a light-duty offer your agreement did not actually permit, or a grievance window that closed while you were dealing with doctors.
Bring the agreement, the fund paperwork and whatever the insurer has sent you. +1 (215) 875-7030.
For benefits, rates and deadlines that apply to every claim, see Philadelphia workers’ compensation.
Reviewed by the workers’ compensation team at Zavodnick & Lasky Personal Injury Lawyers, which represents union members from the Philadelphia building and transportation trades before workers’ compensation judges in Philadelphia County.
