San Francisco, CA – The Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) recently announced a Carve-out Agreement between seven Southern California United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) local unions, Vons and Super A Foods. The agreement covers an estimated 20,000 workers in the region. These workers increase the total California workforce covered by such programs over 55 percent. There are a total of 32 active Labor-Management Carve-out agreements in California, eleven of them active 3201.7 Non-Construction Carve-out programs.
Carve-out programs allow employers and unionized workforces to create their own alternatives for workers’ compensation benefit delivery and dispute resolution under a collective bargaining agreement. Since 2004 carve-out programs in California have handled over 25,000 injured workers’ claims. Eligibility of parties to participate in a program must be approved by the administrative director of the Division of Workers’ Compensation.
The requirements to participate and the elements required to be in carve-out programs are contained in Labor Code section 3201.5 for the construction industry and Labor Code section 3201.7 for all other industries, as well as California Code of Regulations, title 8, sections 10200-10204. Reports covering prior years of the program, which has been in force for construction trades since 1993 and for non-construction workforces since 2004 are available on DWC’s informational page.
Source: CA DWC