I’ve noticed that there seems to be a lot of confusion about the apostrophe in the phrase “workers’ compensation.” I’ve seen ”workers compensation,” ”workers’ compensation,” and even ”worker’s compensation.” So which is correct?
Well, it depends on who you ask. In both New Jersey and New York, the state uses the plural possessive: workers’. The website The Grammar Logs agrees that you should use workers’. This is also the punctuation that Wikipedia favors (though ”workers compensation” is also used several times in the article, and there’s a bit of a debate on the Talk page).
On the other hand, the National Council on Compensation insurance, which bills itself as “the nation’s most comprehensive source for workers compensation data, insights, and solutions,” does not use the apostrophe. Neither does Travelers, which claims to be “the No. 1 writer of workers compensation insurance in the United States”.
The punctuation worker’s is not very popular, but it still has its adherents, including the state governments of both Indiana and Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, the State of New Hampshire can’t seem to make up its mind: this page from their Department of Labor uses all three punctuations! The federal government is also inconsistent; it usually prefers workers’ but sometimes uses worker’s.
So what’s the verdict? There is support for all three punctuations, but ”workers’ compensation” seems to be the most popular by far, and it’s the punctuation that I use as well. Therefore, unless you have strong feelings on the matter, I’d advise you to write ”workers’ compensation.”
Which punctuation do you prefer?