WCDefenseCA

Tell me, dear readers, do you ever order room service while staying in a hotel?

Well, it appears that a slowly growing trend might be catching on in some of the more expensive hotels, which will probably trickle down to the more affordable ones and the cruise ships before too long.

The New York Times has a report on the increased frequency of use of robots by hotels to deliver room service.

One of your humble blogger’s oft-visited topics is the automation of the workforce.  Typically, room service clerks will be plopped into occupation code 322, which carries an “F” variant for spine impairments, but “H/G” for wrist injuries.

Considering also that the average weekly wages of a hotel room service clerk will include minimum wage and tips, any state that recognized cumulative trauma claims (such as, for example, California), would see employers cut some of their claims by replacing room service clerks with some of these robots.

Although a bit dated, this article reflects that one of these models, SoftBank’s “Pepper” costs $1,660 to purchase with a monthly fee of $225 as part of a multi-year contract.  How do those expenses stack up to a minim wage worker (at least) and an increase in the workers’ compensation premiums?

The new facts of life that are emerging are simple (if a bit scary).  Robots are coming for the jobs – not just the dangerous ones; not just the ones where the human employee does not need to interact with the customers or clients; not just the repetitive ones.

The cute-faced and chirpy-sounding robots are coming for customer service jobs as well – from bartenders to room service clerks.

And, what many applicant attorneys refuse to consider when they boast about protecting injured workers by lobbying for more benefits, or using the cost of litigation to extort unjustified benefits, is that they are really pricing more and more workers out of the job market.

Pepper the robot will never get sick, will never be rude to a customer, and will never file a workers’ compensation claim.  Can any human worker honestly say the same?

Your humble blogger strongly doubts a machine will ever replace a workers’ compensation defense attorney, but, that being said, if machines replace all the workers, will a workers’ compensation attorney still be necessary?

Sounds like it’s time for a drink.