Oct 10 2008
Questions Surround Kissell’s Employee Benefits
The NRCC sent out a press release this morning accusing Larry Kissell of not supplying his campaign staffers with workers’ compensation insurance as required by North Carolina law.
But a review of the database from the North Carolina Industrial Commission shows no record of Kissell having workers’ compensation coverage for his employees - placing him in violation of North Carolina law.
According to the last Federal Election Commission (FEC) report, Kissell had six employees on payroll
I went to the North Carolina Industrial Commission’s Q&A Web site and found the following information regarding which employers are required to provide this insurance to their employees. Here is what it says:
In order to determine if you are required by law to carry workers’ compensation insurance, you must first determine your business entity, i.e., sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company (LLC), corporation, agricultural operation, business with radiation, estate, trust, etc.
If you are a sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, estate, or trust, you are required by law to carry coverage once you have three (3) employees who are regularly employed, in addition to the sole proprietor, partners, formulators of the LLC, executor of the estate, and bearer of the trust. It does not matter if these employees are full time, part time, regular seasonal or family members.
If you are incorporated, including all forms of corporations and those which have non-profit status, you are required by law to carry coverage once you have a total of three (3) people in the corporation. Everyone is included in the headcount, including corporate officers.
Businesses with radiation are required by law to carry coverage when they have one (1) employee. An agricultural operation must carry coverage when there are ten (10) or more regular, non-seasonal employees. Any other business entity not mentioned above would use the three (3) or more employees rule.
Being that Kissell for Congress is not an agricultural operation, it would appear that Kissell is indeed required to have this compensation if he has at least three employees. The press release lists six employees on hand for Kissell and point to an article in The Fayetteville Observer discussing Kissell’s hiring of five campaign workers back in June.
I went to the North Carolina Industrial Commission’s online database and when I do a generic search just on Kissell under employer I get 12 hits, but none are for Kissell’s campaign. If you put in Robin Hayes he does come up, as does Heath Shuler and others.
It would appear that these allegations against Kissell are true, unless his campaign can come up with some kind of tangible proof that they haven’t skirted the law here. If indeed he has, where is the law enforcement?
