Send Letter to West Bend Insurance: Stop Undermining Worker Rights

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The Petition

To West Bend, Head of Workman Compensation and to the Insurance Commissioner:

As a company that prides itself on conducting "with the highest moral, legal and ethical standards" we, the undersigned are writing to express our outrage at West Bend Mutual's corporate strategy to evade workers’ compensation law by investigating injured worker's immigration status as a means to violate labor laws that are vital to protecting health and safety standards for all workers.

Such corporate retaliation against immigrant laborers filing workers' compensation claims is made evident through the case of Mr. Omar Damian-Ortega. In 2009, Mr. Damian sustained a work related back injury and subsequently filed a workers' compensation claim. Upon doing so, West Bend Mutual Insurance notified the Grafton Police Department of a potential case of identity theft. Mr. Damian was then arrested by the Grafton Police Department and subsequently placed into immigration deportation proceedings after spending five months in jail.

This trend of charging undocumented workers with identity theft, so as to ensure their detention and deportation to evade payment of their deserved workers' compensation benefits concerns us on many levels. Immigrant workers, especially Latinos, have the highest workplace fatality rates of all workers in the United States. This corporate strategy will create a chilling effect in which undocumented workers will not come forward to report injuries or unsafe workplace conditions if they face the threat of deportation. Such a strategy will ultimately degrade working conditions for all workers in low-wage industries where undocumented workers are concentrated.

I am joining others in asking that West Bend Mutual Insurance terminate such a policy which abuses the labor rights of all low wage workers.
Thank You