JENKINTOWN PERSONAL INJURY ATTORNEYS

Our Pennsylvania Supreme Court has Affirmed (agreed with) a lower court ruling which denied Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Judges the ability to fight for the same pay increases as Pa. State “non-management level employees”.

The non-management level employees pay scale is subject to a negotiated collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that calls for yearly pay increases. Although not part of this CBA, typically, in the past, the Workers’ Compensation Judges would receive a “pass on” pay increase which would match the percentage level of increase of the negotiated CBA.

In December of 2008, the PA Department of Labor and Industry and the Executive Board of the Commonwealth of PA rescinded the “pass on” increase based on budget cuts. In response, the WC Judges collectively sued the Commonwealth seeking pay rate increases.

The Court’s ruling that denied the Judges’ claim was based on the Judges’ lack of standing to bring the claim. The Court reasoned that since the Judges were not a part of the negotiated contract, they were found to have no rights to sue for increases in pay under the negotiated CBL.

In my opinion, the Court’s decision is correct. However, Workers’ Compensation Judges are underpaid and are most deserving of these pay increases and even more! The remedy, however, must be fixed by the Pennsylvania State Legislature. If we want to retain our qualified and experienced Workers’ Compensation judges and attract qualified and dedicated new judges, we must increase the pay rates. Our judges work very hard and unfortunately Pennsylvania has had a difficult time retaining judges and attracting potential new judges in the field of Workers’ Compensation due to our judges being grossly underpaid.