Maryland Workers' Comp Coverage Includes Newspaper Carriers

Yes, the State of Maryland is a Workers’ Compensation State. What does this mean to newspaper carriers? For the purposes of workers’ compensation, newspaper carriers in Maryland are treated the same as employees.

Since the beginning of the newspaper industry, leaders have defended the distribution system using independent contractors. In 1949 the industry won an exemption to child-labor laws and delivering newspapers is one of only six kinds of employment legally available to children 13 years old and younger. In 1996 President Clinton signed the small jobs protection act creating a safe harbor for newspaper carriers. These measures were established on the Federal level but not on the state level.

A publisher in Maryland must provide newspaper carriers with workers’ compensation coverage just as they do for regular employees of the newspaper. The five workers’ compensation states in the country, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Maryland, Nevada and New York, hold carriers as statutory employees for the purposes of coverage. The New York provision applies only to carriers under the age of eighteen.

Newspaper carriers are independent contractors except for workers’ compensation issues, and I find many circulation executives are leery and often slow to admit or accept the fact that this is the law. (See box for text of Maryland Code.) In the state of Maryland, newspaper carriers may be independent contractors and are treated as such for all other purposes.

The following are some hints on how to deal with contracting carriers in a workers’ compensation state:

• Increase your amount of coverage for the carrier accident insurance. This is inexpensive and for about eight or nine dollars monthly per carrier you purchase up to ten thousand dollars coverage.

• Include wording in your carrier agreement requiring the carrier to maintain not only acceptable automobile liability insurance but carrier accident insurance for himself or herself and a substitute.

•Require newspaper carrier candidates to produce a driving record with a three-year history. Develop driver criteria to decide what is an acceptable or unacceptable driver.

• In Frederick, we require newspaper carriers to maintain one million dollars worth of general liability insurance, at a cost of about one hundred dollars per year.

• Contact your carrier insurance agent and ask about a policy capable of covering the deductible for the workers’ compensation policy.

• Most insurance carriers will have a category to provide workers’ compensation insurance just for newspaper carriers and this could be added to a policy covering all of a newspaper’s employees.

By taking these measures you are raising the bar and will attract a better quality newspaper carrier. You also eliminate unsafe drivers and avoid workers’ compensation claims. The number of claims filed for worker’s compensation insurance determines the rates annually.

One of the most important functions of a circulation manager or director is to protect the publisher. If your carriers are not covered by workers’ compensation insurance, I hope you do not have a workers’ compensation claim and learn the hard way that this is the law in the state of Maryland.

O’Toole is the assistant circulation manager of The Frederick News-Post. He serves on the MDDC Circulation Committee.

Postal Reform Bill Dies in Committee

The bill’s substance had some sound provisions for community newspapers and some other areas that needed strengthening. It gave something to every affected interest group, and despite months of consensus building, the vote still came out dismally.

Many are pointing to the lobbying work of United Parcel Service, which opposes flexible pricing for the Postal Service, as the reason most Republicans did not support the bill.

Postal pundits are now hoping a Presidential Commission will be created to cut through the political quagmire for reform. A commission would still need to get legislation passed, according to Chairman Dan Burton (R-IN).

Meanwhile, the Postal Service pursued it’s "Transformation Plan" by holding a second full-day summit. The topic of discussion was negotiated service agreements (NSAs) under existing law.

At the same time, the largest postal union, the APWU, is blasting away at the plan. Said the APWU: "Postal employees recognize Transformation for what it is: the dismantling of the Postal Service."

- excerpted from NNA’s Inside Track

NIE Conference Audio Recordings Available Online

Conference session topics included teaching students about democracy and the First Amendment in a post-Sept. 11 world; opportunities in cross-media partnerships; how character education fits into NIE programs; the state of the newspaper industry and how this impacts NIE programs; trends in education; and partnership opportunities with high school journalism programs.