MSU is taking its nationally recognized workers’ compensation program east, hoping to aid Rutgers University in providing the same services for New Jersey residents.
“There’s no organization for workers’ comp people,” said Edward Welch, director of the MSU workers’ compensation center. “They come from a lot of different fields. We started the certificate program to have a training program to train professionals and give recognition.”
MSU’s workers’ compensation certification program, which has been providing workers’ compensation professionals with specialized knowledge and skills and recognition of certification since 1999, will travel to Princeton, N.J. from Sept. 24-28. According to its Web site, MSU’s Workers’ Compensation Center teaches, conducts research and writes about workers’ compensation and the relationship between employers and employees.
The program will be a new feature for Rutgers, but something that MSU and Welch have been specializing in for almost a decade. Rutgers has a school similar to MSU’s School of Labor and Industrial Relations, which would utilize the workers’ compensation training.
“One of the staff members at the division of workers’ comp in New Jersey attended the program and thought highly of it and the chief judge of the New Jersey program approached me and asked if we could develop a similar program for New Jersey,” said John Burton, a professor in the school of management and labor relations at Rutgers.
Welch, who has a history in workers’ compensation law and the Workers’ Compensation Agency for the state of Michigan, said the program has certified more than 2,000 people from all 50 states.
“We have the national program already established,” Welch said. “We’re going to bring the national component to Rutgers and Rutgers is going to add a specific state component.”
Jeff Biddle, an economics professor at MSU, has taught workers’ compensation law and the economic aspect of compensation at MSU programs.
“Some of the people who come to the program are relatively new to the idea of workers’ compensation,” Biddle said. “They’ve been trained as human resources generalists and take a job at a company and the company says, ‘We’d like you to handle our workers’ compensation claims and maybe that’s not something they specialize in. Our program gives them that specialization.”
Burton said the weeklong program will include sessions on workers’ compensation laws, insurance arrangements and claims and medical aspects of compensation.
The program is open to the public and costs $2,095. It includes meals, course materials, a take-home exam and certificates from MSU and Rutgers.
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