US DoL Notifies Workers Of Inclusion In EEOICPA Special Cohort Designation

Washington, DC (CompNewsNetwork) - The U.S. Department of Labor is notifying all former Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory employees who worked at the Berkeley, Calif., site between Aug. 13, 1942, and Dec. 31, 1961, and all former Westinghouse Electric Corp. employees who worked at the Bloomfield, N.J., site between Aug. 13, 1942, and Dec. 31, 1949, about a new class of employees added to the Special Exposure Cohort of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. The act provides compensation and medical benefits to workers who became ill as a result of working in the nuclear weapons industry. Survivors of qualified workers may also be entitled to benefits.

A worker who is included in a designated SEC class of employees, and who is diagnosed with one of 22 specified cancers, may receive a presumption of causation under the EEOICPA.  On April 5, 2010, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services designated the following class of employees as an addition to the SEC: all employees of the Department of Energy, its predecessor agencies, and their contractors and subcontractors who worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., from Aug. 13, 1942, through Dec. 31, 1961, and all Atomic Weapons Employer employees who worked at Westinghouse Electric Corp. in Bloomfield, N.J., from Aug. 13, 1942, through Dec. 31, 1949, for at least 250 workdays occurring either solely under this employment or in combination with workdays within other classes of employees in the SEC. This designation became effective on May 5, 2010. The Labor Department's role is to adjudicate these claims based on the new SEC class definitions as determined and introduced by HHS. 

To date, more than $19 million in compensation and medical benefits has been paid to 159 eligible Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory claimants under the EEOICPA, while more than $5.7 billion in compensation and medical benefits has been paid nationwide.

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