It’s an all too common tale for many construction companies doing business in New York state. A unionized worker shows up on one of their job sites. Although the worker has been in the trade for decades, it’s the first time that the company has employed them. The worker is only on the job for a short time frame and subsequently retires. The worker, who began developing occupational hearing loss secondary to exposure to industrial noise decades ago, files a claim for workers’ compensation and submits a supporting medical report entitling them to a six figure schedule loss of use (SLU) award. Under the current state of the law, the company that last employed the claimant in the industry is liable for all of the claimant’s benefits up front regardless of the short duration of employment.