Injured teachers’ experiences of the Victorian workers’ compensation stress claims process: Adversarial and alienating

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a study of experiences of Victorian State school teachers undergoing the Victorian WorkCover Authority’s stress claim process. The claimants reported experiencing the process as alienating and disempowering. The injured teachers found the claims process overly procedural and impersonal. The study evidences perceptions of a power and resource imbalance from the claimants’ viewpoint. These imbalances rendered navigation of claims processes problematic. This paper argues for reform for less bureaucratic and less hierarchically intimidating processes, facilitating experiences that are less marginalising, dehumanising and more efficacious for injured teachers.

Keywords:

• workers’ compensation
• stress claims process
• alienation
• power and resource imbalance
• bureaucracy
• sociological research methods